Jazz Monthly.com Interview with deborah henson conant

“Jazz Monthly Feature Interview” Deborah Henson-Conant

Smitty: Today I have rolled out the red carpet for a very special guest who just happens to be a very special person. She’s without a doubt one of the most creative entertainers on the planet. She sings, she plays the harp, she tells stories, and composes symphonic music. She has literally transformed the harp into a very cool, hip harp. Case in point, her latest new offering; it’s called Invention & Alchemy, a CD and DVD that you must add to your collection. Please welcome the amazing and so gorgeous Ms. Deborah Henson-Conant. Deborah, how are you?

Deborah Henson-Conant (DHC): I’m great. How are you?

Smitty: I’m wonderful. It’s great to talk with you.

DHC: Well, it’s great to finally connect.

Smitty: Yes, wow. So you have got to be one of the most happiest people on the planet right now because these two projects that you have put together are truly amazing.

DHC: Well, thank you. As you know from creative projects, the real joy is when you’re actually doing it. And I gotta say, of course, I was probably the most happy when I was in the middle of rehearsing and recording and editing for Invention & Alchemy….I mean, it’s exciting to watch it now, but it was really exciting to create it.

Smitty: I can just imagine.

DHC: And to get to have the kind of open collaboration that I was able to have. I felt like this project allowed me to bring my life full circle, everything from jazz to musical theater. And to have the kind of people working with me who were willing to collaborate in that open….not only across the genres but across, you know, music theater?

Smitty: Yeah, all the facets of entertainment.

DHC: That’s right. To find a group of artists who were willing to do that with me on the kind of level that we did it was amazing, and then to have somebody in the wings who said “Look, this is incredible. Let me help you get it on DVD.” I mean, it’s a dream come true to have a project like that and I feel like in many ways it’s the culmination of a life’s work and it’s also the beginning of a life’s work.

Smitty: Yes, and when I think back on some of your past projects that you’ve done such as Talking Hands and Naked Music…

DHC: Yes.

Smitty: …and my personal favorite, Caught in the Act…

DHC: Yes.

Smitty: …all of those could’ve very easily been fantastic DVD’s themselves, you know?

DHC: Oh yeah, they could’ve been. I will say that of course, the instrument that I play….and I was gonna say “chosen,” but I certainly don’t remember having chosen the harp….the instrument that I play, one of the things that I loved about it was how physical it is. And that it really is historically the instrument of the storyteller. In many different ways it’s also, you know, now that I have an electric harp that I can strap on and wear like an electric guitar, I have pretty much any world open to me through that instrument, whether it’s sort of the magical storytelling world or the jazz world or the more theatrical world or, as you see in Invention & Alchemy, the orchestral world.

Smitty: Yes, and you do it so well.

DHC: Well, until I had an electric harp, I certainly couldn’t have written or arranged the kind of orchestral arrangements that I like to arrange, which is bombastic and large with a lot of brass. You couldn’t do that with an acoustic harp.

Smitty: No. No, you would’ve had to just sit next to it like some of those old movies.

DHC: Right. I mean, it was always a great instrument from a technical standpoint and it’s a fun recording instrument because you can get really close to it, but in terms of taking it into that kind of huge context, that was not possible until, say, like the five or ten years ago when the technology caught up with what I wanted to do.

Smitty: Yes indeed. When I looked at the DVD and when I listened to the CD, I said, you know, this is really something for someone who when they were first introduced to the harp, didn’t even like it. (Laughs.)

DHC: Yeah, well, I think that may be why it all happened. I think one of the things I didn’t like about the harp was the stereotype of the harp. And what has become exciting to me over time is to dig inside it and find out what is really there in this instrument, which has maintained….I mean, it’s one of the oldest instruments. I mean, as you see on the DVD, I talk about the Celtic minstrels who marched into battle with a harp.

Smitty: Yeah.

DHC: There was a time when the harp was such a powerful statement about a culture, about the Celtic culture, that harps were burned and harpists were hung because they were such strong cultural images that in England they were seen to be very dangerous. Yeah, it’s been fascinating for me to start out in the stereotype, looking at the stereotype, and then spend a life digging behind that and finding the power of what’s really there when you get beyond the stereotype.

Smitty: Isn’t that amazing?

DHC: Yeah.

Smitty: I didn’t realize that it had that much influence.

DHC: I didn’t either. I mean, this is the kind of thing where I went out and really kinda had an attitude about it in the beginning but met many harpists from indigenous-type cultures, certainly a lot in the Celtic cultures, and by that I don’t just mean Ireland. I just got back from France, where I was at the biggest Celtic festival in Europe. There are seven different Celtic lands and they’re very strong and their culture, their language, and their music is what keeps them alive. And when I start hearing the stories about that, those were the first people I got stories from, and then I started seeing that there are many other indigenous harp cultures like in Venezuela and in Vera Cruz, and there’s a whole Hispanic harp culture that is also very strong. Who knew?

Smitty: Yeah, exactly because you have not only introduced us to some fantastic music that you’ve created, but you’ve educated us at the same time and I think that’s a beautiful thing.

DHC: Well, thank you. That’s really important to me that a performance not just be about entertainment or that you don’t even sit there and think “Oh wow, that person’s a really good player,” because what did that really give to the audience? Maybe this is because I came from a theater background and my mother sang opera, so there was always a story and a meaning inside the music….that it’s very important to me that when I get on stage I am giving the audience something with which to expand their lives. Whether it’s a song that they could sing about their birthdays or whether it’s a little bit of a historical perspective or whether it’s just the idea that you can take something that you don’t even like and end up making a wonderful life out of it.

Smitty: Yeah. Isn’t that amazing? I read somewhere where you said that the harp taught you to give up your own prejudices.

DHC: Absolutely, yeah.

Smitty: And I can see the harp is an excellent example of that, when you were just speaking about getting past the surface of the harp and the stereotypes and that kind of thing. And then you find something truly amazing there for a lifetime.

DHC: Yes, and something very strong versus the stereotype of the pristine, prissy, gentile instrument. You realize that you scratch beneath the surface and there’s this drama and this power and it’s nothing like what my prejudiced view was. And that’s happened to me several different times in my life. I know this interview’s about music but, you know, by the man that I ended up sharing my life with, I learned a lot about gender prejudice from being with him and what he’s like as a father and how important fatherhood is to him, so it’s just so interesting how we walk around with these stereotypes and prejudices and, man, as soon as you explode them, there’s beauty and power inside.

Smitty: Yes, I love that, that’s a beautiful thing, it truly is.

DHC: Yeah, it’s exciting.

Smitty: Well, I will tell you….and I read this somewhere….Deborah, I will hold your hand any time. (Both laughing.)

DHC: Oh, thank you. Oh, right, right, that was my excuse. I so did not want to play the harp when I was a kid and I just remember that that was finally what got my parents to let me stop taking lessons, and I don’t think they really believed me. I remember saying to my mother “I don’t want to play the harp because I’ll get calluses and no one will hold hands with me.”

Smitty: (Laughs.)

DHC: And I think she realized when I said that, that I was gonna use any excuse to try to get out of the harp. (Both laughing.) That was a pretty weak one.

Smitty: I read that and I had to laugh. I said oh my God.

DHC: Oh yes.

Smitty: But, you know, I’m real curious about your visit to France because there, you had all of this authentic music and all of this culture and people that have been around this music for ages and they’ve been around the harp and know truly what it means to them.

DHC: Right.

Smitty: How did they embrace your music?

DHC: Well, it’s very interesting because I go there….of course I go as a musician, but I didn’t try to play Celtic music. There is a great Celtic influence in my work, but one of the reasons that this particular festival is important to me and I think that I am important to it is that my instrument was built there in Brittany. And it was based upon the traditional Brittan harp, but it’s an electric instrument, and what’s exciting to them and also to me is that I can go back to the seat of the culture of this instrument and show them what a different world that harp had made for me and what a different world I’ve been able to make for that instrument.

Smitty: That’s very cool.

DHC: So my going back there has less to do with any roots of mine in Celtic music, but has to do with our sharing this instrument.

Smitty: Yes. Now, did you always sing or did you incorporate vocals into your music later on?

DHC: I sang from the time I was a little girl, very small. I grew up singing and singing with my parents. I believe I sang before I talked.

Smitty: Yeah, read that somewhere.

DHC: When I was signed to GRP, even before then, when I decided that I really wanted to play jazz, I chose to not sing because I wanted to break, again, a stereotype of the chick singer. I didn’t wanna be the chick singer. So that was very important for me to develop as a player and to be able to hold my own as a player on this instrument, and at that time I was just playing the pedal harp; in other words, the big harp. But I realized after few years….certainly after I was with GRP….that my voice was really important to me, that it was a very important part of what I do, and when I started singing again I got a lot of negative feedback about it.

A lot of people were telling me that I needed to stop singing and it was going ruin my career, and I realized that it didn’t matter because I had to sing. It’s an important part of my voice. And if I was to leave it behind, just as if I was able to….as if I played without any theatrical aspect, I wouldn’t be giving the audience me, and I think it’s essential that every artist gives the audience who they are.

Smitty: Yes, absolutely.

DHC: That’s what we go there for. We go to see a window into how this artist integrates in the world or how this artist reflects and resonates in the world, and how this artist resonates for us their experience of the world.

Smitty: Yes indeed.

DHC: And if they’re gonna hide….if they’re gonna say, well, I mean, many people would probably disagree with me on this, I love hearing people sing, I love hearing people talk, I love hearing people be who they are. What I certainly like hearing somebody get up and pretend they can sing if they can’t. I’d rather hear them sing not well and to know it and be singing because they needed to sing…

Smitty: Yes.

DHC: …than to have them act as though it was good, because it can. My grandmother Edith had this philosophy which was people have to sing, and she was not an artist, she was a farmer, and she learned to play the piano. She said, “People gotta sing and someone’s gotta keep ‘em together. That’s why I play the piano.” It was completely not an artistic thing. She didn’t care about art, she didn’t care about music the way the other side of my family did. To her it was as fundamental as vegetables.

Smitty: How ‘bout that?

DHC: People gotta eat their vegetables and they gotta sing. It’s like you’ve gotta do it. (Both laughing.) And I think what she was onto was that people need to share themselves, and this is not just people on the stage. I mean, I’m a performer, I go on stage and I perform, but music is really important to me in every part of my life and not just as a performer.

Smitty: Absolutely. Well, I don’t know how we could do without it.

DHC: Right, and for me, I’m not a listener. I mean, I love to hear people sing, especially if they don’t know I can hear them. Like if somebody’s working next door and they’re whistling, that’s really beautiful to me. To me it’s a participatory thing. If one person sings to me, I’m in heaven, I’m crying, it’s beautiful. And I also think of it as something we all have to do.

Smitty: You’re right.

DHC: Whether we’re good at it or not.

Smitty: Yes indeed. I totally agree. Well, talk to me about the harp. How many different types are there?

DHC: I have no idea how many there are. In the Western world there seems to be two basic kinds. One is the kind that traditionally is large and has pedals and the pedals are for changing keys. Actually, I would say basically the differences between harps have to do with how you change key. So, on the big harp you do it with pedals. On what’s called the little harp, although some of them are as big as big harps, they are called lever harps. You change the key with a lever. You use your hand to do it. But there have been other very interesting harps. There’s something called a chromatic harp, which is more like a piano which has twice as many strings. The harp is like all the white keys of a piano.

And to get the black notes, as it were….I mean, that’s a really simplistic way of looking at it….but to get the chromatic notes there are varying ways of doing it. So, on the concert harp it’s done with pedals. On the folk or lever harp it’s done with levers. There’s a chromatic harp where it’s done by having twice as many strings. So there’s all these amazing amount of variations on the harp because they’re still developing this, and there are so many independent harp builders throughout the world, at least the Western world. And they’re still trying to come up with ways to deal with this, you know, how do you change keys?

Smitty: When I watch you play I’m saying to myself “How on earth does she do that?” Because there’s so much happening and it seems as though your hands are moving so fast…

DHC: Right.

Smitty: …and you’re moving and there’s all of this great music, and it’s like this is the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen.

DHC: Ha! Well, one of the things that I did love about the harp when I was a kid, even though I didn’t really like the sound of it, is I loved the coordination puzzle of it. It was very intriguing to me, the fact that you have to do one thing with your feet and one thing with your hands, or if you’re playing a strap-on harp, which of course they didn’t have when I was a kid, ….when I first started playing it ten years ago, all I could do was practice putting it on, walking across the room, playing a couple notes, and come back and put it down. That’s all I could do because it was such a new instrument for me.

And the integration with it has been really fascinating. And finally, I think was about five years ago….I went and I played at the Edinburgh fringe festival and I did a theater show, one-woman show, and I only took that little harp, so it was an instrument I wasn’t that familiar with, and I said to myself, “Look, it’s now or never. You have to…” And I think of the instrument as a prosthesis. I think of all instruments as prostheses in a sense that it allows you to reach further or it allows you, in any case, in order to really dance or play whatever it is with a prosthesis or an instrument, you have to integrate yourself with it.

Smitty: Absolutely.

DHC: The process of becoming an instrumentalist is becoming one in a way, with that instrument. The same way that if you lost your legs and you needed to have prosthetic legs, the prosthetic legs are fine, but what’s beautiful is your integration with them. You’re learning how to run, walk or whatever it is so that you can do what you need to do.

Smitty: That’s a beautiful analogy.

DHC: Thank you.

Smitty: Yes. Now, the strap-on harp. How many strings are on this instrument?

DHC: It’s different. The one that I’m playing right now, I think it has 30 strings. Another one was built for me with a few more strings, and I’ll start experimenting with that, but the company that built the first one, the one that I play in the DVD, we are collaborating now on what’s called an ultralight, which is a harp that’s even lighter. They will be talking to bicycle manufacturers about carbon fibers.

Smitty: (Laughs.) Oh my goodness. Now we get into Nano Technology now.

DHC: Well, yeah. I mean, that’s what’s so amazing is that, like I said before, the marriage of technology and my art is what has allowed me to go into the areas that I’m going into now, and this technology is very, very new. You know, my harp has a piezo pickup on every string. That’s not that new. But using lighter material so that I can strap this thing on and so that they can have more strings on it and so that I can have a greater range with it.

Smitty: Yes, you can…

DHC: That’s all just becoming possible.

Smitty: Yes. You can dance more.

DHC: Yes, absolutely. It’s amazing to me because this instrument has really become my signature instrument. It’s amazing to me that it took me years of going around to harp builders and sketching it out or trying to draw it and trying to explain to them what I wanted to do. I think they all thought I was crazy, but finally I made a prototype myself and I went to France and I played it for the man who was the most inventive harp builder and I showed him what I wanted to do and then he was like “Oh, I understand, Deborah.” And, you know, the next time I saw him he had built me the prototype. So my harp has 30 strings, but I’m hoping that the ultralight will probably have maybe 32 to 36.

Smitty: Well, it’s a striking instrument, the colors, everything. It’s a beautiful instrument and to see that evolution of the instrument to where it is now. I think it’s just a fascinating thing.

DHC: Yeah, I do too, and that is not my doing. This was the brainchild of the man who built it, who is no longer living now, but it was his idea to build it in that kind of a color and in that kind of a shape, and I’m really glad he did. I have another harp that’s like bright red. That doesn’t really matter to me. I see that it’s fun and it’s wonderful and it’s exciting to the audience.

Smitty: Yeah, I love the blue and gold.

DHC: Yeah, yeah. That was his idea and he made it that color because I often tell the story, which I tell on the DVD, about how what I really wanted was a blues harp. And I don’t know whether he misunderstood the story or he was making like a double joke, but when he brought me the harp, it was like “Deborah, I have brought to you the blue harp you always wanted.”

Smitty: (Laughs.)

DHC: But Joel [Garnier], no, I wanted a blues harp. So I think that’s why he made it blue.

Smitty: Would you say that that’s the most striking evolution of your career? Going from the pedals to the strap-on.

DHC: You know what’s funny? It’s funny because to me it’s so self-evident that that’s where the harp needed to go. That it doesn’t even seem striking to me. It just seems like “Of course!” And, I mean, in part because I think I saw or imagined a picture of some harpist back in old times and that’s what they did. They strapped their harps on and walked around playing, and I just thought, well why did we stop doing that? That was good. Let’s do it again. So that evolution doesn’t seem that amazing to me but sometimes we just take things for granted.

Smitty: Yes. The thing I kept thinking about as I was watching the DVD is the harp has so much of your personality. And it’s such a part of you, it fits.

DHC: Yes, and that’s a surprise. It’s like if you end up marrying someone who you never thought you would be with…

Smitty: (Laughs.)

DHC: …and yet the relationship is so much richer than you could’ve imagined. And somebody who you didn’t even think was romantic or attractive And then suddenly there’s just this profound romance that you have or something that they allow you to do, that they can give you freedom. And so that’s kind of how I see it. I’m glad it seems like part of me. I still think, like, my God, am I still playing the harp? I set out to write musical theater and I always felt that the harp was pulling me away from that. The thing that I think is most profound to me about Invention & Alchemy is that I feel like I finally got to realize and that rather than taking me away from the heart of what was important to me about music, the harp was able to bring me to the heart of that, and to pull some things together from me that I never thought I would be able to pull together. Like to be able to write for an orchestra but to have the conductor be the kind of theatrical presence that he was (David Lockington).

Smitty: Yes he is.

DHC: Yeah, I mean, that was….Jonathan [Wyner], my husband and also the producer of the DVD, and I were talking about that again this morning, just about how when the project first started, we didn’t even know whether David [Lockington] would agree to be the conductor, and that it was a real turning point for us the moment that we realized he was on board. And then we realized that he was on board big time and that he was not only going to conduct but that he was going to collaborate with us in every artistic sense of the word.

Smitty: And he truly enjoyed himself during that production, I could tell.

DHC: Yeah.

Smitty: He really had a great time with it.

DHC: He did and, you know, the piece with the cello.

Smitty: Yes.

DHC: When we first started working on Invention & Alchemy, I said “So, David, what’s important for you in this project?” And he said—and I think this is in the DVD….he said “Deborah, all I want is that you write a piece that we can play together.” And, you know, I had many thoughts because David is not just a great cellist, he also has a beautiful voice and he’s theatrical and I just loved what we ended up doing….which was the Scheherazade, you know, being the sultan. That was very exciting to me because I’d been working on that piece for many years in many different permutations and I felt like it finally came alive and became what I always envisioned because of him.

Smitty: Yes, it was very colorful.

DHC: Yeah, yeah.

Smitty: Vibrant and a lot of electricity there. I could feel that.

DHC: Yeah, it was so wonderful to work with him on that, and to see him invest in it musically and dramatically was just so exciting. As a composer it was exciting and then to actually get to collaborate with him, to play with him was also exciting.

And it was funny because my best friend, who’s a cellist, and we used to have a harp and cello duo, and I made her come up and try to work it out with me because I couldn’t work it out with David because he’s in Grand Rapids, and I still have the tapes of her and I working on it, and when I go over and I say “No, no, no, you have to grab the cello like this and do you mind if I touch it?” No, it’s fine. I’d say “No, go like this. Whack it like this.”

Smitty: (Laughs.) Those are fun memories.

DHC: Oh yeah. I loved all the creativity that went into this project, and we had creative collaborators who you don’t even see on screen. There were directors who came and coached us on a lot of the physical aspects and theatrical aspects of it. And then there were just surprising things that happened like in the “Danger Zone,” the one about the mad scientist. I said, you know, “I need somebody who could hold a clipboard” and they said “Oh, oh, John Clapp, the Personnel Manager. He is perfect.” And that’s one of my favorite pieces of the DVD is watching this guy and he made up everything. I don’t know if you remember the things he did like he was measuring everything on his page. He just took it on in such a way that I would never have even imagined.

Smitty: (Laughs.) Well, that’s improvisation at its best, you know?

DHC: Yeah, yes, it was, and I felt like they were all willing to do that. How often do you get a whole orchestra who is not only willing to all put on lab coats, but who will go out and get the lab coats so they can put ‘em on?

Smitty: Well, Deborah, you create such a vibe that not only was everyone willing to do all those things, but I noticed the shots of the audience.

DHC: Yes.

Smitty: They were so into it and then your interaction with them. They were so into the performance and everything. They loved it. It’s what you create that causes everything around you to happen and I think it’s beautiful.

DHC: Well, thank you. It’s really fun to have the opportunity to do that and to do it on that level.

Smitty: Yes. And before I forget. I just want to congratulate everyone that had anything to do with this project because there are so many people, like you mentioned, even on the cover, on the inside flap of the CD. There’s all of the musicians and great people, even the guest conductor John Varineau.

DHC: Right. Yes, yes, yes.

Smitty: I mean, this was a collaboration of so many people that really just demonstrates what can be done if everyone pulls right in there and just becomes a part of it.

DHC: Right. Yeah, I agree. I must say that Jonathan, my partner. We had not worked together in this way exactly on a project and he was really the force behind that.

Smitty: Oh yes.

DHC: I mean, of course I’ve played with this orchestra, and this orchestra and I have a very special relationship, which is why this happened at all. This whole project happened because I went to play with them, one of the people in the audience came up afterwards and said “I loved what I saw on stage there. I’d like the whole world to see that.”

Smitty: Isn’t that beautiful?

DHC: Well, it’s beautiful. I mean, people say that, but this man really meant it, that he wanted to make that happen, and that’s why it happened with me with this orchestra because we already had this magic between us and then David came along and that just like upped the ante because he and I had already had a musical relationship years before then in another orchestra. So there was just this whole meeting…. originally this project was just supposed to be a CD. And Jonathan was the one who said “No, that does not show your work. That’s not your work. Your work is as a performer and engaging everything, it’s not just the sound. It’s the sound and it’s the visuals and it’s how you’re involving with everyone, the audience and the people on stage. It has to be a DVD so that we can capture all of that.”

Smitty: Well, I totally agree with him.

DHC: Yeah, I do too.

Smitty: And I’m so glad he had such a great vision to pull this together.

DHC: He did and it was exciting to work with somebody who had a vision that sometimes I didn’t get at first and I’d say “I don’t understand. Why are we doing this? I don’t get it.” And then afterwards I’d say “Oh, I see.”

Smitty: Well, you seem….and I know Jonathan has seen this….you are so in your element on stage. I mean, from the very beginning of the DVD, when you told the minstrel story, I was so captured immediately. I said “You know, she’s so into this, she’s so in charge, and this is her. This is her place.”

DHC: Well, you know, you’re absolutely right. That is my place. I feel completely safe on stage in a way that I don’t in the rest of the world. And I think a lot about that and I wonder a lot about it, and both my aunt and my mother were divas, in a very good way, and they came alive. And my aunt, who is still living, still does. They come alive for me on the stage and they became accessible to me in a way on the stage.

I think that a lot of other people think that when someone gets up on a stage it’s stagy and it’s acting. My experience was the opposite, that when I would see them on the stage, there was a truth and an intimacy that there couldn’t be often in “real life.” I could reach them and they could reach me, and I would say that’s even to a certain extent true of my father as well, that communicating through music in that way allowed me to reach them, and so when I go on stage I love it. I just feel safe.

Smitty: Would you believe that your audience feels the same way?

DHC: Yeah, thank you. I do believe that. Because I think that’s how I felt and feel in the audience of a person who loves to be on stage.

Smitty: Absolutely.

DHC: Yeah, and I love it. I mean, I love seeing performers who love to perform. I’m like the greatest audience.

Smitty: Yes, I love it. So, now, what’s coming up? You’ve got several dates where you’re performing. Anything else new coming up?

DHC: Well, right now I’m just trying to recuperate. I don’t mean physically like I’m falling apart or anything. I just mean that everything took second place with this project. I just dropped everything because this was such an amazing project. Right now I have all of this sheet music that I write and a lot of people want to play the music that I write and so I need to get it written and communicate with the printers to get it printed. There’s always sort of day-to-day stuff that completely fell behind. I’m like right now there’s this song that I sing on the DVD called “Congratulations, You Made It This Far.” The birthday song.

And we have a birthday card that we’ve been selling for years with that song in it as a CD single. Well, we’re out of them. And I’m just dealing with manufacturers to get it reprinted, a lot of things like that right now are taking up my life. It’s sort of just getting things back in order after the DVD came out. As boring as that may sound, that’s actually exciting to me right now. And then the other thing that I love to do that I’ll be doing again soon in the fall is that I do a one-woman show and I do that at a theater here in Boston.

Smitty: Oh, great.

DHC: And in the spring it starts again with orchestra performances and stuff like that. But right now it is just getting my bearings underneath me a little bit. Get back on stage solo, which I really love, and then I also perform a little bit with private performances, private concerts which is different. Yeah, it’s very different to be sort of in a very small environment versus this huge, you know, 2,000 seats. And I actually love both.

Smitty: Yes, well your music is for all the ages, I think, and you could see that with the DVD as well.

DHC: Yes, that’s right.

Smitty: The audience was so diverse. And everyone, you could tell they were so into it. It was as though they were on stage with you, and I think that’s just a wonderful thing.

DHC: Well, that’s great. I’m really happy to think that people feel that way. It’s very important to me that my shows are….it is something that people will come to together….often people will come to my show and then they’ll come back, bringing their kids. Or young people will come and come back and bring their parents. And I feel that that’s really important, that I can provide an environment where diverse people can meet. Especially people in the same family.

Smitty: I can appreciate that. Well, I tell ya, I cannot say enough about this DVD and the CD as well….it’s so colorful, and just looking at the cover itself just tells you that there’s something great inside.

DHC: Aw, that’s great because we worked really hard on that too. Each aspect of it was very creative and we love the cover and we wanted to give the image, or try to express what’s inside, because what’s inside it’s so hard to describe with words. I mean, how would you describe it?

Smitty: Well, after I finished it, I said “This is sort of like an electrifying performance that grabs everyone.” That’s what I said. And then I said “This project should have its own special watermark with gilded edges.” That was my response.

DHC: Uh-huh. So I hear that you’re not comparing it to anything or putting it in any category.

Smitty: No, because I didn’t think it fit in any category. I think it was music for all tastes and all ages, I really did.

DHC: Wow.

Smitty: Yeah, because there was so much there, and the real spice, I think, is your great storytelling.

DHC: Well, thank you.

Smitty: I love that.

DHC: That’s great. I love it. I love to tell stories and I love to hear stories, and to me music is a story.

Smitty: Yes it is.

DHC: You know, so and I understand that I’m actually up there saying stories out loud, but the music itself is a story to me as well, and so that is all very integrated, and that’s something that I learned was okay when I went to Scotland.

Smitty: Oh wow.

DHC: I mean, I’ve always integrated music and story in terms of musical theater, but in Scotland they do it in some ways more like me. I often think that what I do is an amalgam of everything I’ve loved. It’s an amalgam of Scottish storytelling, German cabaret, Italian opera, and I don’t know, American jazz and, I mean, it’s just…

Smitty: I would not put this in a category.

DHC: Yeah, I know.

Smitty: I couldn’t. And I love the humor too. I think that’s something that we just don’t have enough of.

DHC: Right.

Smitty: And I just love that.

DHC: Yeah, that’s great. I mean, you’re bringing out many of the things that were really important to us in making it.

Smitty: Oh, great.

DHC: It’s very important to me to have humor. I mean, it’s not that it’s important to have humor; I just see the world humorously. Therefore, if I am going to actually show my vision, it’s gonna have humor in it.

Smitty: Yeah.

DHC: And this is what I love about theater….that you can have the transition between humor and pathos….I love that going back and forth between the two and trying to touch all those emotions in the course of an evening, and so it’s great to know that that is working for the 2,000 other people who happen to be in the room.

Smitty: Well, let me tell you, it is just a magnificent project. And the Grand Rapids Symphony Orchestra, they are just…

DHC: Aren’t they amazing?

Smitty: They are, wow.

DHC: Yeah, I love that we were able to show some of the individual playing…

Smitty: Yes.

DHC: …and some of the individual personalities along with the power that you usually identify with an orchestra.

Smitty: Yes indeed.

DHC: Because that’s really important to me since I went into orchestral writing ten years ago and, again, you know, there was the stereotype of like “Oh wow, you gotta be careful. The orchestra’s all these people in tuxedos,” and I especially with the Grand Rapids Symphony got this feeling of just all this personality and that you could either show it individually and you see the individual personality or you could put it all together and you see this great powerful force. And I love, again, the transition between seeing them collectively, the collective force, versus the individual power.

Smitty: Yeah, it’s truly amazing, and I just cannot thank you enough for….and everyone, and Jonathan especially….for putting this together and being so detailed in everything, because it all comes together to be something truly special, it really is.

DHC: Great, I’m going to pass that on. That is great. Well, I will say that if people are interested in reading more about the technical aspects of the project, because some people are; I think www.apple.com did….there was an article that they wrote about Jonathan and just about what it was technically. that’s in their archives. I’m sure you can also find it through my Web site.

Smitty: Oh wow. So, now, give me your Web site.

DHC: The Web site is www.hipharp.com.

Smitty: Yes, and then there’s a Web site for Invention…

DHC: There’s also a Web site for Invention & Alchemy… (www.InventionAndAlchemy.com) .…if people just want to go and learn a little bit more about the DVD.

Smitty: Yes, and it’s available now?

DHC: Yes, absolutely. I know it’s on Amazon, I think it’s going be on CD Baby soon, but people can definitely get it through my Web site, and a lot of people choose to do that because if I’m around I can also sign it.

Smitty: Very cool.

DHC: Yeah, it is fun. It’s fun to be able to do that.

Smitty: Well, I can’t wait to see the live performance so I’ve got to get up to Massachusetts.

DHC: That’s right. Yeah, well, I’m sure that I’ll be out there, especially if I’m doing the one-woman show, so at some point it would be fun if you get to catch one of those.

Smitty: Yes, I will. We’ve been talking with the amazing Ms. Deborah Henson Conant about her fantastic career and most notably her great new CD and DVD; it’s appropriately called Invention & Alchemy. I highly recommend this project. Deborah, it has been such an honor, congratulations again on this wonderful masterpiece, and all the very best in 2006 and beyond my friend.

DHC: Thank you so much.

Baldwin “Smitty” Smith

For More Information Visit www.HipHarp.com or www.InventionAndAlchemy.com