“Richard ‘Dobbs’ Hartshorne and his guide were on their way to a remote Ugandan prison one day last spring,” writes Liora Engel-Smith in Sunday’s (12/3) Keene Sentinel (Keene, NH). The double bassist and Nelson, New Hampshire resident “has made it his mission to bring the music of Johann Sebastian Bach to people in living in difficult conditions…. Hartshorne has traveled abroad at least a dozen times since 2004, giving free concerts to prisoners, refugees, school children and college students in the Middle East and Africa. He founded a nonprofit organization, Bach with Verse, to help him cover the travel costs. On his trips, he stays with friends … giving three performances per day, usually to groups of 100-200 people…. He’s also played in more than 80 U.S. prisons, rehab facilities, hospitals and correction and detention centers in California, New England and New York.” At the Ugandan prison visit, “400 men clad in bright yellow jumpsuits … congregated under two large trees.… [Hartshorne] began with Bach…. He followed with original compositions—funny stories he writes and sets to music…. On Friday, Hartshorne embarked on a three-day journey to Sulaymaniyah City in the Iraqi Kurdistan region, where he’ll spend two-and-a-half weeks.”
Posted December 6, 2017
