Susan Alcorn
Susan Alcorn will play the pedal steel guitar, with Evan Lipson and Bob Stagner also performing, at Barking Legs Theater on Thursday, Oct. 1, at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $10 at the door.
Review for Susan Alcorn:
One of the world’s premiere musical innovators on her instrument, Baltimore-based Susan Alcorn 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 and western bands. Soon she began to expand the vocabulary of her instrument through her study of modern classical music (Messiaen, Varèse, Penderecki), the deep listening of Pauline Oliveros, free jazz and world musics (Indian ragas, South American songs and gamelan orchestra).
Alcorn’s pieces reveal the complexity of her instrument and her musical experience while never straying from a very direct, intense, and personal musical expression. Her latest critically acclaimed album, Soledad, explores the music of Argentine tango composer Astor Piazzolla.
Review for Evan Lipson:
Evan Lipson has operated as a musician since adolescence—intuitively seeking the subliminal zones in which intellect and instinct, history and myth, and creative and destructive force intersect. Drawn towards aberrant perspectives at an early age, his formative experiences were primarily rooted in extreme and often discordant forms of rock, improvised music, modernist composition, jazz, outsider pop, soundtracks, and noise. Lipson is currently active with Normal Love and WREST (with Jack Wright and Ben Bennett). Recently, he has scored several films as well as written music for a new collaboration with David Greenberger, Amanda Cagle and Bob Stagner of the Shaking Ray Levis.
Review for Bob Stagner:
Bob Stagner is the only artist to have ever performed with both Dolly Parton and Derek Bailey. A founding member of the non-profit arts education organization Shaking Ray Levi Society and one half of the legendary duo the Shaking Ray Levis, Stagner has been an undeniable force for
radical thought, perpetual creativity, and total improvisation. He has performed and recorded with a wide range of artists, including Rev. Howard Finster, Wayne White, Bob Dorough, Col. Bruce
Hampton, Fred Frith, Min Tanaka, Amy Denio, Shelley Hirsch and John Zorn. Percussionist, educator and community leader, evidence of Stagner's indelible impact can be found throughout
Chattanooga, the Mid-South, and beyond.