Lose your Blues – with a 32-String Electric Harp

The lead-up to the Holidays is intense –then it all deflates in the cold days of January when the Blues hit you hard.  That’s why I always brings my Annual Lose Your Blues show to the Boston Area just after New Year’s.

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Lose your Blues – with a 32-String Harp
Electric Harpist & Singer Deborah Henson-Conant – Sat. Jan. 10^th 8pm
TCAN in Natick, MA
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PRESS RELEASE (Run through 1/10/15 – Contact info@HipHarp.com)

Imagine a 32-string harp shrunk to the size of a crossbow. The player strides onto stage with the swagger of a matador, straps on her instrument and plugs it in like an electric guitar. She sings and tells stories – and pulls sounds from the harp you’d never expect to hear:  Blues, Flamenco, even Rock licks.

This woman is GRAMMY®-Nominated composer and performer Deborah Henson-Conant. The instrument is a 32-String electric harp invented for her.  She’s toured with Rock legend Steve Vai and the renowned Boston Pops, she’s opened for Ray Charles at Tanglewood and had her own music special on PBS … but her forte is solo shows.

And every January she brings her annual “Lose your Blues” show to TCAN (The Center for Arts in Natick). This year it’s on Sat. Jan. 10, 2015 at 8:00pm. (Details, Tix & links to hi-res photos are in the “Who, What, When, Where” section below)

Most people think “Harp = Classical Music” – but thinking the harp is a ‘classical instrument’ is like thinking all dogs are poodles.  DHC straps on her ‘hip-harp’ and plays it as if it were a physical extension of the human body.

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Ok, so what does DHC actually do?
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She sings, tells stories, and plays the harp – but not like any harp you’ve seen or heard before. It’s a 11 lb. carbon-fibre harp that was built in France using top racing bike technology.

It’s fully electric, with a pickup on every string, so it can sound as angelic as a harp, or as driving as an electric guitar.  Named after her, the “DHC Light” — is now the top-selling electric harp in the world with waiting lists of nearly half-a-year.

She straps it on with a harness, and uses a looper pedal to layer sounds that pad and prod her voice, in spoken word, belting Broadway-style or lilting like a Celtic lullaby.

She’s a solo performer – someone who loves to create an entire world just from what she can do with hands, feet, instrument and voice. 

Her background is in Jazz and musical theater – so she brings both to the stage.  Improvising alone or with other musicians and bringing stories alive with spoken word and music.

Her shows are a thinking-woman’s night of music and humor — a show she can feel comfortable bringing anyone to see: from her rock-playing nephew to her new flame to her creative mastermind group.

Read more in her blog “So, what do I actually DO?”   http://bit.ly/17zZcqF

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A Brief History of the Artist
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Deborah Henson-Conant hit the jazz scene in the mid-80’s with her “Jazz Harp Trio.” She became a Boston-area jazz staple until her appearance with Charlie Rose led to a recording contract. She was the only woman instrumentalist on the Contemporary Jazz label GRP.  She toured the US and Europe with her quartet in the 90’s, when she also began working with the French harp firm, CAMAC, to develop an electric harp that could be strapped on like an electric guitar. For a decade she wrote solo and symphonic music for this new instrument.

In 2006 Henson-Conant received a Grammy Nomination for “Best Classical Crossover” Album for her all-original show with symphony orchestra.  In 2007 her public television special “Invention & Alchemy” appeared on PBS stations across the US. From 2008 – 2011 she wrote and performed one-woman shows — all with main characters who played harp – combining redoubtable history, fantasy and theatricality. In 2012, she joined the rock band of guitar legend Steve Vai, touring nearly 100 shows in 30 countries.  In 2013, her concerto “Soñando en Español” played alongside works by Bernstein and Gershwin, she started an international online school and was invited to South America to represent the U.S. as a citizen cultural ambassador to Paraguay.

In her spare time, Henson-Conant is a runner and a music blogger- with a Facebook following in the multi-thousands. She created and manages an international online learning community specifically for harp players worldwide. She lives in the Boston area with her husband and two black cats.

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The Instrument Invented for Her
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The “DHC Light” was invented specifically for the shows she creates: a 32-string electric harp-like lyre created for and named after her, by the CAMAC Company in France. The 11-pound, carbon-fibre instrument was designed especially to allow her to move, dance, tell stories, sing, and even layer sound upon sound with the looper pedal she uses – and to be completely physically integrated with the instrument. This model is now the top-selling electric harp model in the world. 

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WHO-WHAT-WHEN-WHERE & LINKS
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WHO: GRAMMY®-Nominated Electric Harpist Deborah Henson-Conant
WHAT: 4^rd Annual “LOSE YOUR BLUES” Blues-Inspired Show
WHEN: Sat. Jan. 10, 2015 at 8:00pm
WHERE: TCAN (The Center for Arts in Natick)- 14 Summer St. Natick, MA 01760 – (508) 647-0097 –  NatickArts.org
TIX: $24 for members, $26 non-members, Discounts available for seniors & students – (508) 647-0097
BUY TIX: http://www.natickarts.org/performance/deborah-henson-conant-lose-your-blues
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MORE ARTIST PRESS INFO: https://hipharp.com/publicity.html
HI-RES IMAGES: https://hipharp.com/pressphotos.html

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Deborah Henson-Conant
Golden Cage Music, Inc. & HipHarp.com
info@HipHarp.com / 781-483-3556
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Website: http://www.HipHarp.com
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