Kray Van Kirk

This concert will be indoors at the hosts’ home in Rockport, Mass. and capacity will be limited to 30. The suggested contribution is $20, payable at the door by cash, check, or Venmo. Send email to info@whalecove.org to get more information or to request an invitation.

A fine finger-style guitarist with a precise baritone, Kray Van Kirk has a Ph.D. from the University of Alaska, but he set science aside to write songs, tell stories and summon heroes.

“We are driven by myth and the seasons of the heart,” he says, “and the stories are all true. There is a dark cave inside each of us, and monsters of all kinds lurk there, all the more lethal for being hidden. The quest is to journey inside, render the monsters powerless, find whatever it is that burns at the core of your soul and bring it back into the light. In a world divided it is critical to write songs and tell stories that show absolutely everyone they get to be the hero. Nobody is left behind.”

When he reached Scotland and the Fringe Festival, the Daily Fringe Review wrote “The evening’s act was Kray Van Kirk, whose 12-string guitar and soaring vocals were spellbinding; the Alaskan singer-songwriter, in his Edinburgh debut, was not the reason I arrived early, but was certainly why I stayed late.”

Of this charming, Quixotic and eclectic performer, the Borderline Folk Club in New York wrote that Van Kirk was “what every singer-songwriter should aspire to.”