Join us for a night of exceptional instrumentalists: Katt Hernandez (violin, Sweden) and Wilfrido Terrazas (flute, Mexico) each present a short solo set, followed by a collaboration with local improvisors Susan Alcorn (pedal steel guitar) and Andy Hayleck (banjo).

Katt Hernandez is a violinist living in Stockholm, Sweden. Focused primarily on freely improvised music, Katt draws a fiery array of electronic-like sounds and keening melodies from her unaltered, acoustic violin. She also works extensively with microtonality, drawn from a study of a mixture of sources, including traditional folk and sacred musics of the Middle East, Turkey, and Eastern Europe, variated odd-ball old Americana, work with modular synthesizers and the Maneri/Sims 72 pitch system.

Wilfrido Terrazas  is a Mexican flutist, improviser and composer, and his career spans over 25 years of intense activity. His recent work has been focused, above all, in finding points of convergence between notated and improvised music, and in trying out different approaches to collaboration and collective creation. He is a founding member and Herald of the Mexico City-based improvisation collective Generación Espontánea since 2006.

Susan Alcorn is a pedal steel guitarist based in Baltimore. One of the world’s premiere musical innovators on her instrument, Susan has taken the pedal steel guitar far beyond its traditional role in country and western swing music. Known among steel guitarists for her virtuosity and authenticity in a traditional context, Alcorn first paid her dues in Texas country & western bands. She soon expanded the vocabulary of her instrument through study of modern classical music, deep listening, free jazz, tango, and world musics.

Andy Hayleck is a composer/musician and recordist. Andy explores the aesthetics of sound, especially regarding how sound is perceived by the ear. He uses extremes of volume, pitch, and sound complexity, and variations in change over time. He works with bowed metal, field recordings, contact microphones, and electro-acoustics for recorded compositions and live improvisation. He has created an open-ended body of work that includes performance, video, installation and dance collaboration.

Event location:

The Red Room at Normals Books and Records 425 E. 31st Street Baltimore, MD 21218

The Red Room is a volunteer-run space in Baltimore dedicated to mind-expanding experimental culture, headquartered at Normals Books and Records.