Steamworks Creative

A finger-style guitarist with a precise baritone, Van Kirk has a Ph.D. from the University of Alaska. After five years of touring, he thought the sciences might be a bit more secure than playing music. But he wrote better songs than statistical models, and he set out again. “We are driven by myth and the seasons of the heart,” he says. “Everyone, absolutely everyone, of any gender, identity, orientation, ethnicity or anything else, should know that they are not alone but are on the Hero’s Journey.”

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.”