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An ‘armchair pilgrimage’ to St. Patrick’s world
Harp guitarist John Doan transports audiences during musician’s final North Coast concert
By PATRICK WEBB
FOR COAST WEEKEND
IF YOU GO
A
John Doan’s Celtic Pilgrimage
to St. Patrick’s World
sk John Doan why Celtic
music has endured for gen-
erations and he’ll talk your
ear off.
The composer and performer
will offer a musical guide to that
question at a matinee concert Sun-
day, March 10, in Astoria.
“John Doan’s Celtic Pilgrim-
age to St. Patrick’s World” takes
place at the Clatsop Community
College Performing Arts Center. It
is a benefit for the partners group
seeking to preserve the PAC.
“I feel as if I am communing
with something beyond time and
location, with the whimsey of sto-
ries,” said Doan, who will perform
on the harp guitar.
Doan was in Astoria in Decem-
ber performing a concert of
Christmas music on his historic
stringed instruments, pipes and tin
whistles.
At 67, the professor is retir-
ing in May after teaching at Wil-
lamette University in Salem for
42 years. He is relocating to San
Diego, Calif., to be closer to fam-
ily. And unlike those rock groups
who tour until they drop, Doan
maintains that this really is the last
time he will perform on the North
Coast.
Charlene Larsen, president
of Partners for the PAC, said her
group has tried for two years to
schedule a performance date.
“John Doan has an enthusiastic
following in Clatsop County,” she
said. “Our schedules have now
come together and we look for-
ward to this farewell concert with
Doan and his harp guitar.”
The concert, timed to coincide
with the upcoming St. Patrick’s
Day, has a different flavor from
the one in December, but will offer
similar multimedia visual accom-
paniment, which Doan labels an
A benefit for Partners For The
PAC
When: 3 p.m. Sunday, March 10
Where: Clatsop Community
College Performing Arts Center,
588 16th St., Astoria
Admission: Suggested $15
donation, $10 for seniors and
children. Under 12 free if accom-
panied by an adult.
www.supportthepac.org
www.johndoan.com
dance show, which toured the U.S.
in the 1990s. The 1997 James
Cameron film, “Titanic,” featured
a spirited dance scene of the work-
ing-class passengers below decks.
Myth and mystery
John Doan
Musician and composer John Doan, a professor at Willamette University in Salem, is pictured with his distinctive
harp guitar.
“armchair pilgrimage.”
‘Thin places’
Historians note that the
Romans conquered almost all
of Europe, changing the cul-
ture of regions they dominated,
including England. Because they
stopped short of invading Ireland
and Scotland, those countries bet-
ter preserved their heritage and
traditions.
As Roman influence waned, the
fifth-century existence of St. Pat-
rick, who became Ireland’s patron
saint, sparked a belief in pilgrim-
ages and the holy properties of rel-
ics. Though Christian, early Irish
people embraced a pagan concept
of “thin places” — sacred loca-
tions where the distance between
Heaven and Earth diminishes —
and past, present and future are
barely separated.
“We get this last remaining
people that retained their culture
of being ‘present,’” he said. “This
is something that’s uniquely Irish.
The Irish ‘let their hair down,’ take
a break and celebrate it.”
Irish who fled the Great Potato
Famine of the 1840s populated the
America West building railroads.
Names like Kelly, Ryan, Murphy
and Doyle pervade the nation, not
just in concentrations like Boston
and Chicago.
National Public Radio has
tapped into the regard for Irish
music in the U.S. with its “This-
tle and Shamrock” program and
the Celtic Woman ensemble has
toured during the past 10 years.
Modern popularity was
sparked by 1960s band The Chief-
tains, which has earned multi-
ple Grammys and whose mem-
bers have collaborated with talents
as diverse as Van Morrison and
Luciano Pavarotti. The genre’s
profile was raised by the River-
Doan will have CDs of his
Celtic music available for pur-
chase. Two were produced during
that same era, songs created fol-
lowing a hitchhiking trip through
Ireland absorbing the ethos of poet
W.B. Yeats through churchyards
and fields of heather. “Eire: Isle
of the Saints (A Celtic Odyssey)”
was released in 1997 and “Way-
farer: Ancient Paths to Sacred
Places” two years later. Both were
nominated for New Age Voice
awards and the earlier work won
Best Celtic Album of the Year.
Doan sees broad appeal in “the
myth and mystery of the Celts.”
“Part of it is that people relate
to it,” said Doan. “They don’t see
it as ‘other than themselves.’ It is
a time to celebrate their Anglo-
Celtic heritage, and the friendli-
ness of a culture, meeting in pubs,
having a drink and celebrating life
— that’s hard to argue with!” CW