From Symphony ... to House Concert. On the road in verse Join the list to receive this E-newsletter in your own In-Box • View This OnLine   Oct. 5, 2011 In this issue: Symphony Show in WV House Concert in NC Creative Intenstive in NC Birthday Bash in MA Full Tour Schedule What's On My Mind I'm tired of long sentences. But don't want to be terse. So here's what's on my tour this week As told to you in verse... (But the rest of the poems don't rhyme ... maybe next week) p.s. I'm posting the tour daily on Twitter and Facebook - follow the tour!   SAT. OCT. 8 in Pt. Pleasant, WV SYMPHONY SHOW! A universe of strings and lips and lungs and ears Collective mind gives voice to my invention. I play with a symphony and marvel at how notes on paper come to life When human hands play music I once only dreamed. (Read more ...) SUN. OCT. 9 in Efland, NC SPACE meets MUSIC A Most Unusual House Concert An architect designs an exquisite barn A French inventor creates a new instrument. And me, I make stories with music The architect is my childhood friend The builder builds the instrument for me... And one day it happens: Inside this barn, with this instrument - You sit. And I unfold. (Read more ...) Use the SECRET CODE "FRIENDS" to get $15 tix (Normally they're $25) SUN. OCT. 16 in Greensboro, NC PASSION Meets PERFORMANCE 4-Hour Creativity Intensive (Only a few spots left! ) The spirit can grow static Music parched in hands that thirst to speak Fountains longing to gush While underground in pools of pure and cool and quenching, never tapped ,,, But to bring it forth ... A divining rod, the structure of a well, The fireworks of each soul's certain music as it spills from the depths as water and fire are one. (Read more ...) Sponsored by the N.C. Harp Ensemble     Check out my tour calendar for all the shows including Ohio/West Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Connecticut, Mississippi, Georgia, Massachusetts ... did I forget any??   Flash-Mob meets Theater Show - Friday, Nov. 11 at 8pm "11-11-11" BIRTHDAY CONCERT & ALBUM INCEPTION PARTY When I was 19 ... decades ago, To displace the anxiety of my own birthday, Instead of a party, I planned a concert, Plastered posters all over town, And sang my way into the next year. Now it's a yearly tradition. Only, just last night, I had a new idea - Why not invite the audience onstage, too? Join me at the show, off-stage ... or on! How? Three ways: 1. Buy regular old tix and just enjoy the show 2. VIP tix: Join me for pre-show reception ON STAGE 2. Flash-Mob Performance: Become PART of the show in one (or more) of the "Production Numbers." Email if you're interested and I'll send more info as soon as I get somewhere on this tour where I have both internet access and a few hours free! I'm still working out the details, since I just had this brilliant idea last night.     CAN'T BE AT MY BIRTHDAY CONCERT? Sing me my own birthday song: "Congratulations, You Made it This Far"! Download the sheet music for FREE with the code "BIRTHDAY" thru my birthday 11-11-11. Videotape your version, put it on YouTube & send me the link. I'll compile all the versions on a web page and gluttonously watch them on my birthday (or ... well, probably the day after)  - Singing "Over the Rainbow" in Kansas is deeply moving. Especially when the audience sings along. - Tumbleweeds are show-offs. - I should have flossed my teeth more when I was a kid. Also last year. - Just because you're driving there doesn't mean the time-zone won't change. - Holly, Colorado has a luxury motel ... and we stayed there, for $65 a night. The only other folks we talked to in the motel were hunters. That means they had rifles in their cars. And I had a harp. Interesting juxtaposition. But we all liked the pumpkin muffins. - MacDonalds actually has something I can eat! And it only costs a buck! (Yogurt parfait. Don't tell me if it's fake yogurt, I don't want to know.) - Huge gratitude for Kolacny Music, in Denver. They set up a 3-day residency for me, where I got to coach my piece "Baroque Flamenco" to more people than I can remember. From a 12-year-old kid to grown-up adults - every one of them ready to make that piece their own. I remember the struggle of writing it out, with all the weird effects. And now - boom! It springs from their hands, as if it always existed. And wow, it was great to see the Kolacny's, spend time in their shop and talk about old times. Plus they made me a copy of this photo they took of me 200 years ago, with their daughter, Katie. Guitar legend Steve Vai calls her the "Jimi Hendrix of the harp." The New York Times credits her with shaping the serenely Olympian harp into a jazz instrument by warping it closer to the Blues." Deborah Henson-Conant's music ranges from Blues to Flamenco, in a relentless exploration of the instrument that was invented specifically for her by the CAMAC company in France: a 32-string, 11-pound electric harp she slings on like an electric guitar. She combines music, theater and humor - with a voice, which has been compared to Carly Simon and an onstage energy that's been compared to Elvis Presley and Chuck Berry. "The instrument forced me to rip apart any preconceptions. Nobody had ever tried to get these sounds out of a harp, so I simply had to stop thinking of it as a harp, and open my mind to everything else it could be," says the composing performer. That led to the development of music that's won her a GRAMMY nomination, PBS television music special, first prize in the International Songwriting Competition, and invitations to perform worldwide as a solo performer and with orchestras.