The first night of Susan Alcorn’s residency will include new arrangements of Astor Piazzolla songs performed with Ryan Sawyer, Steve Swell, Darius Jones, Michael Formanek, Maria Chavez and Country Western Improv group with Skulí Sverrison, Ryan Sawyer, C Spencer Yeh, Beverly Keys, Patrick Holmes.
Susan Alcorn is a Baltimore, Maryland-based composer and musician who has received international recognition as an innovator of the pedal steel guitar, an instrument whose sound is commonly associated with country and western music. Alcorn has absorbed the technique of C&W pedal steel playing and refined it to a virtuosic level. Her original music reveals the influence of free jazz, avant-garde classical music, Indian ragas, Indigenous traditions, and other musics of the world. Over the course of two evenings she will be presenting a night of original compositions, arrangements of Astor Piazzolla, a country western improv group, and a solo improvised performance.