Celtic Pilgrimage Concert in Austria [video]

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Kedar Video recorded John Doan’s Celtic Pilgrimage Concert at the Kornspeicher in Wels, Austria. The guest singer was Rija. The video is 1 hour and 11 minutes.

John was interviewed after the concert, providing a behind-the-scenes story of how he came to create the Celtic music from his Eire – Isle of the Saints, Wayfarer, and A Celtic Pilgrimage albums.

Interview: John Doan Concert in Rigomagno, Italy

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John Doan in Six Bars Jail Concert 2010, ItalyFollowing is an interview published after my visit and concert in Rigomagno – a thousand year old hilltop village in Tuscany, Italy. Used with permission.

We are curious to know how it all began: it’s such a peculiar instrument, how did you get interested in the harp-guitar?

In a world increasingly filled with machine made things that are all made the same I have found it refreshing to celebrate the unusual. I grew up in Venice, California in the United States – a place inspired by Venezia in Italy. I guess beauty and the unusual seemed to go together in my youth and while in my teens I played the 12 string guitar and a double neck electric in a rock band. Later, while studying music at a university I was introduced to classical guitar. I really enjoyed the music for the lute and was amazed at the sound of its many strings. When I later found a century old harp guitar on the back wall of a music store it called to me with its beautiful shape and unusual collection of extra strings. I was achingly curious and wanted to transform its silence and neglect into something alive and vibrant. It was and continues to be an adventure to play music on the harp guitar.

What’s the origin of the harp-guitar? And what about your instrument? Did you have it built especially for you? In this case, where did you find the model? Is it an original model you designed?

John Doan & Six Bar Jail Guitar club in Florence ItalyThe harp guitar in America was first popular from the 1890’s through the 1920’s. People played them in mandolin orchestras, vaudeville shows, and in their parlors. In Europe the harp guitar was becoming popular as early as the 1840’s and grew in popularity up through the early 1900’s especially in Germany and in Italy. Pasquale Taraffo is one of the great Italian masters of the instrument in the early 20th century. To learn more about this amazing player from your own history check out the information on Taraffo on the Harp Guitars site.

Regarding my instrument, I commissioned it in 1986 from John Sullivan with oversight and design by Jeffrey Elliott of Portland, Oregon. Jeffrey had made guitars for Julian Bream, Ralph Towner, etc. and I was excited to see how he would approach the challenges of so many strings and meet my requirements of evenness of tone using steel strings. Although based on the Knutsen, Dyer, and Gibson harp guitars from a century earlier it was completely redesigned to be a master instrument that would sound evenly across all its range (like the piano). It is considered the “first modern harp guitar” of our times. Scores of copies have been made and it was recently on the cover of the magazine “American Lutherie.”
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Irish Philadelphia Interviews John Doan on Celtic Music and Mysteries

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Irish Philadelphia published an interview with John Doan called “Harp Guitar Performer John Doan Brings Celtic Music and Mysteries to Newtown” to promote his upcoming show outside of Philadelphia.

In the article, John talks about his roots and how he came to the harp guitar and his journey into Celtic music, and how his first pilgrimage to Ireland eventually connected him with Billy Oskay, the man who would help him make his Celtic visions a musical dream come true.

Doan first visited Ireland in the ‘80s—roughing it, hitchhiking, sleeping under the stars. One night, he says, he yearned for a real bed and a shower, and he scraped together enough cash for a stay in a bed and breakfast. The two aged “aunties” who ran the place kept him well entertained, he said, and they told him that when he went back to the States they should look up their nephew Mícheál, who also lived in the Pacific Northwest. “Tell him he should visit us,” they said.

When he got back home, he called the phone number he’d been given and starting chatting up Mícheál, who turned out to Mícheál Ó Domhnaill the former leader of the famous Irish group the Bothy Band. He in turn introduced John to Billy Oskay, the fiddler and producer of Nightnoise.

Over the years, the two became friends, and Oskay became a fan of the Doan’s harp guitar. In the ‘90s, Oskay asked Doan to contribute an Irish-sounding piece for the first Celtic Twilight album from Hearts of Space. By the time Celtic Twilight 2 came along, Doan had composed more Celtic music. Before too long he thought to compose an entire album for Celtic harp guitar.