Bio:
Dan Schatz has been playing folk music since his childhood in Kensington, Maryland. Nurtured by the active folk music community in the Washington, DC area, he has performed concerts, festivals and workshops since the age of 12.
Since then, Dan has become a GRAMMY nominated singer, multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, producer and interpreter of traditional and contemporary folk music. He combines a strong voice with instrumentals that have been described as both “brilliant” and “blissful.” Dan is especially admired as an autoharp player - “Each octave on his autoharp has something different to do,” wrote one reviewer, “which underscores his versatility and originality.”
In recent years, Dan’s original songs have gained increasing recognition and admiration. He continues to perform songs and tunes both new and old, accompanying himself on guitars, autoharp, dulcimer and banjo. Dan's work on Singing Through the Hard Times - a Tribute to Utah Phillips, an album featuring Dan along with Emmylou Harris, Pete Seeger, Tom Paxton, and others earned him a GRAMMY nomination 2010. More recently, he co-produced and performed on the internationally acclaimed Dear Jean - Artists Celebrate Jean Ritchie, leading Fatea Magazine to list him as one of the artists in "the topmost drawers of American folk music."
Dan's solo recordings combine musicianship with a deep respect for tradition, a poetic creativity and a strong sense of social justice. Sing Out! magazine called his 2007 solo CD, Bring the Morning Home, "a magical collection of traditional and original songs that, given the chance, will stay with you for a very long time." In his 2010 CD and hardcover book, The Song and the Sigh, Dan integrates reflections and insights and songs of hope, meaning and community inspired by his work as a Unitarian Universalist minister. The album includes collaborations with Magpie, Lisa Null, Charlie Pilzer and others. His newest album, The Promise of the Sowing, which honors the farmers, fisherfolk, fieldworkers, and the earth that provide our food, was released on Folk-Legacy Records in the Summer 2015 and has received high acclaim.
Dan is available for concerts, coffee houses, festivals, children’s performances and workshops nationally. His appearance on Woodsongs Old Time Radio hour has been broadcast nationally on NPR and PBS stations, as well as other outlets around the world, and is also available as part of a music arts curriculum for public schools.
Dan serves as Minister of the BuxMont Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Warrington, Pennsylvania, and lives with his wife and son in West Chester, Pennsylvania.