 “The Jimi Hendrix of the harp” Steve Vai
“Dazzling
harp playing, gorgeous jazz/pop singing,
comic timing and impressive
songwriting” Austin American-Statesman
“ Reshaping
the serenely Olympian harp into a jazz
instrument by warping it closer to the Blues”
New
York Times
Short Blurb | Brief Bio | Longer Bio | Photos | Quotes
Deborah
Henson-Conant ("DHC") is
a GRAMMY©-Nominated one-woman
orchestra. With electric harp, voice
and a looper
pedal that she layers 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
Light.”
Forget the demure harpist – forget
the Classical Music -- forget dozing
off in the back row. Henson-Conant
is a showman, entertainer and solid
musician who’s been compared
to musical greats from Leonard
Bernstein to Elvis
Presley.
Her 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 and
even Eddie Izzard.
Her
shows, her life, her instrument, her
workshops and her music are all about
transformation -- all tied together
by powerful, funny, affirming stories
and universal humor.
Legendary "Tonight
Show" trumpeter Doc Severinsen calls
her the "Wild Woman of the
Harp," iconic
rock guitarist Steve Vai says she's the "Jimi
Hendrix of the Harp." See
her once and you'll never look at a harp
the same way again.
She's
toured with the Boston Pops,
opened for Ray Charles at Tanglewood,
jammed onstage with Bobby McFerrin and
offstage with Aerosmith's Steven
Tyler.She’s been featured
on television shows from Charlie
Rose to Joan Rivers and "The
View" and
in two full-length PBS music specials.
"SHORT BLURB" (DHC in 1 Sentence)
(23 words / 146 characters including spaces)
Deborah Henson-Conant is a Grammy-Nominated electric harp virtuoso with a wicked sense of humor, a gutsy set of vocal chords and theatrical flair.
BRIEF ARTIST BIO
(106 words / 680 characters including spaces)
Deborah Henson-Conant is a GRAMMY®-Nominated recording artist and the world’s
premier electric harpist. She’s known for her high energy shows with
orchestra and on solo stages, her evocative singing voice, her fusion of music
and theater - and.for transforming the classical
concert harp into a "Street Harp" -
a powerful, fully electric instrument a seventh of the size of a concert
harp and fully electric. 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.
SLIGHTLY LESS-BRIEF ARTIST BIO
(195 words / 967 characters including spaces)
Deborah Henson-Conant is a Grammy-nominated electric harp virtuoso with a wicked sense of humor, a gutsy set of vocal chords and a theatrical flair.
She's intimate, inventive, spontaneous and bigger-than-life - and she pulls sounds from the 32 strings of her custom-built electric harp that you'd never expect to hear from the instrument St. Peter hands out at the Pearly Gates: Blues. Jazz. Flamenco. Distortion.
She uses a foot-pedal to capture musical phrases on the fly and loop them together, building a pulse of sound an rhythms she improvises over, and tells stories of her own improbable life as she strides the stage strapped onto her harp like a musical centaur.
Poetic dissonance, movement, story and song – she pulls it all from the world's most cutting edge harp, built for her by the CAMAC company and named after her, the “DHC-Light.”
She's opened for Ray Charles at Tanglewood, toured with the Boston Pops as a featured soloist and with guitar legend Steve Vai as a rock harpist. Her music special "Invention & Alchemy" appeared on PBS Stations throughout the US and she performs her own solo shows in theaters and concert halls around the world.
PHOTO (ABOVE)
Photo above is by Beatriz Harley during a 2012 tour
with Steve Vai.
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