Patrice Haan Welcomes You!

“Patrice Haan has an ear for melody, a heart for feelings and a gift for lyrics. She combines it all into beautiful music, whether singing and playing her own songs or interpreting others' creations.”

Welcome to the official website for Patrice Haan, Celtic harper, singer and songwriter. Thank you for visiting - explore and enjoy!

My first cover! Café Musique, a San Luis Obispo-based band, whose sound is the perfect marriage of classical, swing, gypsy, folk, tango and originals has recorded my song, 'Catching Your Breath,' on their new album of the same name!

I come from a musical family. We sang in the car, doing the dishes, at church, at family gatherings. My cousins and auntie played piano, fiddle, dulcimer, guitar and the whole tribe sang harmonies. While I desperately wanted a harp - I’ve love the sound of harp and wanted one with all my might since I first heard it when I was about six years old on an album was called Rusty in Orchestraville - I started playing the family upright piano when my elder sister began lessons with Sister RuthAnn. Kath played; I played it back. Eventually I got to take lessons too and inherited the church organist's position when I about twelve.

I finally got a harp, a lap harp, in my mid-thirties, shortly before various upheavals caused a musical lapse. Fortunately, fate and sundry angels intervened and music has returned to the central role in my life.

I moved to the San Francisco Bay-area in 1998 and plunged into the music scene, performing with Tony Marcus in Leftover Dreams, a sophisticated and elegant jazz standards duet, as well as such diverse artists as Sylvia Herold, Park Stickney, Diana Rowan, Maureen Brennan, and the Black Brothers. I've played in coffeehouses and concerts in two Canadian provinces and four states in settings as varied as the main stage at the Strawberry Music Festival, a cruise to Alaska, and First Night Monterey. In 2001 Tony and I recorded the first of two Leftover Dreams albums of jazz standards. A second collection (We'll Take Romance) followed in 2005, and in the same year I released Headed Home, an album of original music. I'm in the studio recording a new album currently.

My harp led me to serving as the president of the local Celtic-harp association (the Bay Area Folk Harp Society) where I have lead harp classes and workshops and garnered rave reviews for "droll humour and stage presence" as emcee the MCMF Festival of Harps, the Hoolie at The Woods, and the ISFHC main stage. Also in 2004, it drew me to join the non-profit organization, Healing Muses, which takes healing music into local hospitals and care facilities for the benefit of patients and their families, and staff. Our newest album of Healing Music entitled A Garden of Healing includes two of my original songs and was released early in 2010.

I just wanted to tell you that your CD is absolute magic! We played it over and over on the trip home. May I be so bold as to say that “Catching Your Breath” is not an exception with your songwriting, but the norm. All of your songs are deep and full of feeling and emotion. Thanks so much for letting us play and record 'Catching Your Breath.'
—Duane Inglish, Café Musique

I'm so impressed by the sound of your voice--it's such a treat to hear you playing with the fullness of your range, all the nuances of your rich tone.
—Cyd Smith, songwriter-guitarist, OR

You have touched me, my dear spirit. Thank you for sharing with us, we are deeply grateful for your gift and the gift of your talent.
—Judy & Bob Allen, WA

Such a marvelous set of contradictions - your unique qualities as a complex intellectual with a passionate heart - being held in balance by your self disciplined commitment to communicating them to others through your music.
—Sara Lanier Spottiswoode, musicologist and harper, N. Ireland