2005 Salem & Portland, Oregon HGGIII
This delightful event officially began with a Friday night concert at the Portland State University, Portland, OR. There were a dozen players on the program for this performance, and again for the Saturday night show in Salem at the Willamette University venue.
Many more players joined in on each finale and filled the stage with harp guitars of all shapes and sizes. Gregg Miner loaded a truck with many exotic styles of harp guitars and helped to fill the stage in Salem reaching a total count of 63 instruments. It was a site to behold and believed to be the largest display of harp guitars ever assembled. John Doan is a long time player of the harp guitar and professor of music at Willamette University in Salem.
He arranged the venue at the Universities and graciously hosted the three-day event, which is getting bigger each year.
There were workshops on Saturday and Sunday covering playing techniques, composition for harp guitar and new building ideas.
Tom Noe spoke about his Knutsen book and I on the Larson books. Players came from all corners of the U.S. and builders from the U.S., England, Belgium and Canada. There was also a surprise appearance by Mason “Classical Gas” Williams.
