BIO 1
Deborah Henson-Conant is a one-woman orchestra,
with electric harp, voice and a looper pedal
she uses
to layer sounds in real time, then weaves solo
lines and vocals above it. Her signature instrument
is an 11lb carbon-fiber electric harp, designed
specifically for her by the CAMAC Harp Company
in France, it’s now one of the fastest-selling
new harp models in the world and carries her
name, the “DHC Blue-Light.” <http://www.camac-harps.com/camac-harps-eng/dhcbluelight.html>
Forget the demure harpist – Henson-Conant
is a showman, entertainer and solid musician
who’s been compared to musical greats from
Leonard Bernstein to Elvis Presley. She’s
been featured on CBS Sunday Morning, The Today
Show and NPR’s Weekend Edition, and in
two full-length PBS music specials. Henson-Conant’s
voice is compared to Carly Simon and Joan Baez;
her playing to Chuck Berry and Jimi Hendrix;
and her humor to musical comedian Victor Borge. The
shows are tied together by powerful, funny, affirming
stories and universal humor. Her website, HipHarp.com <http://www.hipharp.com/> and
YouTube channel <http://www.youtube.com/hipharpist> give
a good overview of what you can expect at the
show.
BIO 2
Deborah Henson-Conant is a Grammy-Nominated recording
artist and the world’s premier electric
harpist. She’s known for her renegade image,
evocative singing voice, and shows that fuse
music, theater, stories and humor. Her playing
ranges from full-out bluesy to heart wrenching
ballad. This is a feel-good, outside-the-box,
bring-the-folks-you-love kind of show for audiences
of all genders and ages- folks who want to celebrate
what it means to passionately follow your own
creative path.
She debuted with the Boston Pops, opened for
Ray Charles at Tanglewood, jammed onstage with
Bobby McFerrin, Doc Severinsen and Marvin Hamlish
-- and offstage with Aerosmith's Steven Tyler. She's
been featured on CBS’ “Sunday Morning,” NBC’s “Today
Show” and NPR’s “Weekend Edition,” and
interviewed by Scott Simon, Studs Terkel, Charlie
Rose & even Joan Rivers.
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[Below is the short 'Blurb-type' bio from the
front page of the Press Booklet]
===============================================
Music…Theatre…Comedy…Passion...
To describe Deborah Henson-Conant is nearly impossible.
She’s a Grammy-Nominated, genre-bending,
Blues-Flamenco-Celtic-Funk-Folk-Jazz dynamo. She’s
written and produced her own One-Woman Shows,
and orchestrated her many symphony shows. She’s
performed in theaters, clubs and concert halls
throughout the U.S. and Europe -- and on PBS stations
across the U.S. in her Public Television special
“Invention & Alchemy.” She’s
collaborated onstage with scientists, journalists
and actors in her cross-discipline exploration
series “Inviting Invention” - and
with orchestras, directors, theaters and other
artists in countless performances.
She’s committed to bringing humor, beauty
and audience-involvement to the stage in new works
of music theater, and to reinventing the electric
harp as the foremost crossover instrument of the
21st century.
She’s a storyteller and a composer. She
solos and wails like a rock guitarist. She turns
music into theater and theater into something
lyrical. See her once and you’ll never look
at the harp the same way again.
===================================================
[Below is the longer bio on page 2 of the Press
Booklet, and press quotes below]
===================================================
DEBORAH HENSON-CONANT BIO
She strides on stage with the energy of a rock
star and pulls a soulful, electrifying power-chord
from ... her harp.
If you think the harp isn’t “that”
kind of instrument, it wasn’t. Not until
Deborah Henson-Conant got her hands on it - literally
- and convinced European builders to invent a
harp she could strap on and play like an electric
guitar.
Now this Grammy-Nominated artist takes center
stage, her multi-colored braids flying, and plays
in styles from Flamenco to Blues, with a theatrical
singing voice and a narrative of storytelling
and humor. But it wasn’t always like that...
Deborah Henson-Conant started improvising stories
with music on her grandmother’s piano when
she was three, but refused point blank to take
lessons. Her parents tried every instrument they
could think of - even the harp - but it wasn’t
‘til years later, when her college band
needed a harpist that she agreed to give the 47-string
monster another go.
She paid her way through U.C. Berkeley’s
music program by playing in cocktail lounges,
then headed to NYC wth hopes of taking her original
musicals to Broadway. Still playing “for
your dining pleasure” to pay the bills,
she got the courage one night to drag her harp
from the dining room to the jazz lounge, said
“mind if I sit in?” -- and promptly
fell in love with jazz, blues and improvisation.
She swapped her cocktail dresses for cowboy boots
and strapless tops, formed the Jazz Harp Trio,
won a Boston Music Award, a National Endowment
for the Arts grant to study jazz, and poured herself
into jazz. Charlie Rose heard about her, asked
her on his show, and a week later the president
of GRP records called to offer her a recording
contract -- and within a year she was the world’s
foremost jazz-harp player, lugging her 75lb harp
around the globe.
An invitation to Edinburgh to teach the fundamentals
of Blues introduced her to the concert harp’s
smaller cousin: the Celtic harp. Struck by its
portability and excited about its potential for
Blues and Rock, she envisioned an electric, strap-on
Celtic- harp as the crossover instrument of the
21st century -- and in the mid- 90’s she
began a collaboration with Europe’s top
harp-builder that led to the development of the
first commercially-available carbon-fibre electric
strap-on harp, now named for Henson-Conant: “DHC
Blue-Lite.”
Long considered the renegade of the harp world,
Deborah discovered that once she strapped on her
harp, she became part of one of the oldest musical
traditions: the singing, storytelling bard --
but this time with an upbeat, electric twist.
In the late 90’s, when the Boston Pops
asked for Deborah as a soloist, she agreed on
the condition that she get to write and arrange
the orchestral charts. Rave reviews of that debut
led to more orchestral appearances, and to Henson-Conant’s
creation of the largest body of music for contemporary
harp soloist and orchestra in the world, and culminated
in the 3-year “Invention & Alchemy”
project (2005-2007) which netted her a Grammy
Nomination and PBS Broadcasts around the country.
She’s now created nearly a dozen different
orchestral shows.
In 2008 Henson-Conant finally fused her passion
to write musical theater with her success as a
performer, in the debut of her original One-Woman
Musical “What the Hell are you doing in
the Waiting Room for Heaven??”
Henson-Conant now tours and performs in three
major areas: solo concerts, original One-Woman
Music-Theater Shows, and as a soloist with orchestras
and ensembles. She’s created the single
largest body of work for solo harp and vocalist.
Deborah Henson-Conant has toured with the Boston
Pops, opened for Ray Charles at Tanglewood, performed
her one-woman show from Budapest to Boston, created
her own PBS special, “Invention & Alchemy,”
and has been featured on NBC, CBS, CNN & NPR.
She’s been interviewed by Charlies Rose,
Lou Rawls, Joan Rivers, Studs Terkel, Scott Simon,
Billy Taylor and Susan Stamberg.
And she says she’s just getting started...
DEBORAH'S INSTRUMENTS:
Deborah's signature instrument is the "DHC
Blue-Lite" built for her by CAMAC Harps in
France. It's a solid-body, carbon-fibre
electric Celtic harp with 36 strings and piezo
pickups on each string. it weghs approximately
5 kilos (about 11 pounds).
==============
PRESS QUOTES
==============
NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO: “Imagine the talented
love-child of André Previn and Lucille
Ball.” (Scott Simon)
NEW YORK TIMES: “Reshaping the serenely
Olympian harp into a jazz instrument by warping
it closer to the blues.” (Gene Santoro)
LOS ANGELES TIMES: “Indeed her hands and
voice alike speak with unprecedented eloquence...”
(Leonard Feather)
BOSTON GLOBE: “Whatever it is that transfixes
an audience, she’s got it.” (Catherine
Peterson)
GRAND RAPIDS PRESS: “Calling Deborah Henson-Conant
a harpist is like calling Joe DiMaggio just a
guy with a bat. Technically it’s accurate,
but you’re just scratching the surface.”
(Jeff Kaczmarcyk)
AUSTIN AMERICAN STATESMAN: “Deborah Henson-Conant
was born to entertain…dazzling harp playing,
gorgeous jazz/pop singing, comic timing and impressive
songwriting…with orchestrations that are
as fresh and exuberant as her stage personality…She
can do something you don’t expect at a pops
concert, and that is to touch you.” (Jerry
Young)
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR: “In concert,
Henson-Conant looks like an athlete at times…shoulder
muscles strain and flex…Other times the
lift and sweep of her arms could be a ballet move
from ‘Swan Lake.’” (Laura Van
Tuyl)
BOSTON GLOBE: “A combination of Leonard
Bernstein, Steven Tyler, and Xena the Warrior
Princess.” (Ed Siegel)
WALL STREET JOURNAL: “…phenomenal
harpist-performer.” (B.Schortt)
GLASGOW HERALD: “Melodic warmth, harmonic
sophistication and the ability to swing her head
off…” (Elliot Meadow)
BOSTON PHOENIX: “Setting up songs with
anecdotes that balanced whimsy, innocence and
sophistication, then tightening the screws with
solid music.” (Bob Blumenthal)
DENVER POST: “Doing for the harp what Chuck
Berry and Elvis once did for the guitar.”
(Jeff Bradley)
REX REED: “A harpist and poet who knows
how to blend rhapsodic harmonies with dark purple
lyrical twists that force you to listen twice
before final comprehension sets in.”