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Katt Hernandez
Katt Hernandez moved to Stockholm in 2010, and rapidly began working with a great many artists and new music organizations. In addition to solo violin work, she co-founded The Schematics and Deuterium Quartet, and has worked with a host of musicians and others in Sweden's improvised, electronic and experimental music scenes. Katt earned a Masters degree in Electroacoustic Composition from the Royal Music Academy of Sweden in 2014, where she studied with composer Bill Brunson. In 2015 she began a PhD in Music at Lund university, and is also employed at the Royal Music Academy as part of Klas Nevrin's research project on improvisation, Music in Disorder. She is has most recently been playing in the Fire! Orchestra, led by Mats Gustafsson, in Julia Strzalek's Kolibri project, in Henrik Frisk's ExpEAR ensemble, with her own group, The Schematics and in a vast number of spontaneous collaborations. Katt has been featured both as a violinist and as a composer on festivals, series and radio stations throughout the world.
Before leaving the U.S., Katt was a 13 year veteran of experimental music scenes on the east coast, where she worked with a vast array of musicians, dancers, visual artists, puppeteers, film makers and performance artists, in venues ranging from underground urban art spaces to ivy league concert halls. In Philadelphia, after living in the Boston area for nine years, playing the violin, running spaces, and producing shows. She immediately became involved in performances with Bowerbird, Soundfield, Ars Nova, and Nicole Bindler's Dance Ensemble upon her arrival. Over the last year, Katt has also toured the U.S. with Vashti Bunyan, and most recently also with Vetiver, including a rather magnificannt concert of this new and old form fo music at Carnegie Hall as part of David Byrne's "Welcome to Dreamland" event. Before leaving Boston, she also participated in the Voltaic Vaudeville festival, wherein she played Solo, with butoh dancer Jennifer Hicks, and as part of the Beat Circus Vaudeville Orchestra.
Focused primarily on freely improvised music, Katt draws a firey array of electronic-like sounds and keening melodies from her completely accoustic violin. She works extensively with microtonality, drawn from earlier studies of a mixture of sources, including traditional folk and sacred musics of the Middle East, Turkey, and Eastern Europe, various odd-ball whisps of old Americana, and the Maneri/Sims 72 note system. Playing with as wide and unexpected a variety of other performers as possible is tantamount to her sonic and spiritual pursuits. She has also played music of the late Ottman empire and Whirling Dervish ceremonies with the Eurasia Ensemble. She spent some time playing old-time, vaudeville, and early jazz tunes with Matt Somalis(a.k.a. Shoe) whilst channelling the spirit of Amelia Earhart in the duo Lindy's Radio. And she also plays the mysterious incarnation of a disturbing cartoon character in the frightening music and performance art duo Dr. Selenium and Madame Margo. In fact, she plays somewhere for somebody at least weekly, come hell or high water.
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Vilhelm Bromander: In This Forever Unfolding Moment
by Chris May
Ornette Coleman's haunting Lonely Woman" is becoming something of a 2023 soundtrack. At the time of writing, we have had memorable versions from Kahil El'Zabar's Ethnic Heritage Ensemble on Spirit Gatherer (Spirit Muse), and Kurt Elling and Charlie Hunter on The Iridescent Spree (Edition), plus another couple of efforts about which the less said the better. Here comes a third boss edition. Sort of. Låt Våra Tårar Bli Våra Vapen," which opens side two of Vilhelm Bromander's ...
read moreElsa Bergman: Playon Crayon
by John Eyles
Ever since 1967, when British composer Cornelius Cardew's 193-page graphic score Treatise was published, there has been controversy about the role graphic scores play in improvised music. Having worked on Treatise from 1963 to 1967, once it was published and discussed, Cardew wrote Treatise Handbook, published in 1971, which shed no light on how Treatise's complex graphics should be interpreted. The reason for the historical note is that with Playon Crayon Elsa Bergman may be following in Cardew's footprints. The ...
read moreKatt Hernandez: Spiral Passes
by Gordon Marshall
Katt Hernandez plays violin with a hand and eye versed in the vagaries of natural sound. A student of microtonal music, she is also steeped in European folk traditions, and skilled in classical forms of improvisation. While her work goes in many directions, it stays sharp and swift and supple.
She is equally adept in all modes of musical reasoning. Whether alone or in ensemble, she wraps her mind around her improvised, atonal melodies and anti-melodies, on the ...
read moreViolinist Katt Hernandez Interviewed at AAJ
Source:
All About Jazz
Katt Hernandez plays violin with a hand and eye versed in the vagaries of natural sound. A student of microtonal music, she is also steeped in European folk traditions, and skilled in classical forms of improvisation. While her work goes in many directions, it stays sharp and swift and supple.
She is equally adept in all modes of musical reasoning. Whether alone or in ensemble, she wraps her mind around her improvised, atonal melodies and anti-melodies, on the fly, always ...
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Sten Hostfalt and Katt Hernandez at Perch Cafe in Brooklyn Sept. 30
Source:
All About Jazz
new creative improvised music label SONUS REX Brooklyn NY presents
STEN HOSTALT and KATT HERNANDEZ Saturday, September 30th @ PERCH CAFE' BROOKLYN NY 365 Fifth Avenue, Park Slope, Brooklyn, NY at 9 pm no cover http://www.theperchcafe.com NY Transit ; R to union st / F to 4th av
Sten Hostfalt - guitar Katt Heernandez - violin
Musicians everywhere are aware of Hernandez' exceptional artistry" ...
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Sten Hostfalt, Katt Hernandez at the Cinema, Philadelphia, Aug. 4
Source:
All About Jazz
Sten Hostfalt and Katt Hernandez May 21 at ABC No Rio New York
Source:
All About Jazz
MAY 21 2006 MICROTONAL DUO CONCERT PERFORMANCE @ ABC NO RIO NEW YORK STEN HOSTFALT - guitar/electronics & KATT HERNANDEZ - violin http://www.abcnorio.org http://www.stenhostfalt.com http://www.katthernandez.com The Concert starts at 7.30 pm with a trio performance by Nobu Stowe-piano, Lee Pembleton-electronics & Blaise Siwula-sax, is followed by a solo cello performance by Jun Jensen and after Sten Hostfalt's & Katt Hernandez' duo performance, the concert evening will end with an open session. A collectively-run center for art ...
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". . .The Long Awaited Etcetera puts Hernandez squarely on the radar. . . as one of the few violinists of consequence in improvised music"~ Stanley Zappa, Bannanafish
"Hernandez is a young violinist who shows the potential to develop into a major voice in experimental violin improvisation and join the ranks of Mat Maneri, Mari Kimura, Malcolm Goldstein, and Takehisa Kosugi".~ Michael A