Patrick Ball

San Francisco native Patrick Ball has brought fresh life to the resonant tones of the wire-strung Irish harp. He plays an instrument modeled on an early Celtic design and crafted by Jay Wircher in Houlton, Maine, establishing himself as a foremost interpreter of the compositions of eighteenth-century Irish harpist and composer Turlough O'Carolan. Although Irish pieces form the core of his programs, his recordings and concerts also feature traditional material drawn from Scotland, Wales, the Isle of Man, Brittany, Belgium, and England.

Born to an attorney who urged him to enter the legal profession, Ball took up piano and guitar in childhood yet pursued law studies at college. Growing fascination with Irish poets, songwriters, and novelists gradually pulled his focus away from that path. After his father’s death removed the expectation of a legal career, Ball left school and journeyed to Ireland to immerse himself in its oral heritage, where he first became captivated by the Irish harp.

Back in the United States he attended Dominican College in California, completing a master’s degree in history. Finding limited employment opportunities in Irish history, he hitchhiked across the country until reaching the Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains, where he spent two years employed as a groundsman.

A second visit to Ireland preceded his return to California, where he located a builder of the wire-strung Celtic harp. Self-taught on the instrument, he began his professional life as a musician.

Drawing inspiration from the storytelling customs of both Ireland and the Appalachian region, Ball developed into an accomplished weaver of tales. His first spoken-word album, Storyteller/Gwilan's Harp and Other Celtic Tales, earned the National Association of Independent Record Distributors’ award for best independently released spoken-word recording of 1995. In 1997 he supplied harp accompaniment for Cher’s narration of the children’s story The Ugly Duckling. That same year he issued the double-CD set Finnegan's Wake, pairing his reading from James Joyce’s 1939 novel with his own harp playing. His most recent undertaking, the solo theater work O'Carolan's Farewell to Music, opened in November and December 1997 at the Studio Theater in Sarasota, Florida, and the Theatre Company in Wilmington, Delaware.