Tin Hat Trio

AUSTIN EYE + EAR MUSIC SERIES: TIN HAT TRIO
TIN HAT TRIO PERFORMS SCORES TO THE INSECT ANIMATIONS OF WLADYSLAW STAREWICZ

Sept. 19 | 7pm | Alamo Drafthouse Downtown

Presented in association with the Center for Russian, Eastern European, and Euroasian Studies

band photo

Forging a new acoustic sound that defies categorization while striking universal emotional chords, Tin Hat Trio makes freewheeling chamber music for the 21st century. After garnering widespread critical acclaim in 1999 for its debut recording Memory Is An Elephant, the San Francisco Bay Area group has charged into the new millennium with Helium. Hailed by the New York Press for the way it "mines a rare middle ground with a subtly insurgent slant" by "interweaving Old World Europe with postmodern America, south-of-the-border sensuality with concert-hall propriety, and odd-metered syncopation with deeply soulful grooves," Tin Hat Trio stands poised on the cusp of an original American ethnic music of its own devise.

Featuring Rob Burger on accordion, piano, pump organ, harmonica, marxophone, Carla Kihlstedt on violin and viola, and Mark Orton on guitar, dobro, and tenor banjo, Tin Hat Trio is an acoustic chamber group that combines intriguing and challenging compositions with a striking command of tone and texture, and a playfully spontaneous approach to improvisation. Their style blends tango, bluegrass, contemporary classical, and Eastern European folk traditions with an avant-garde edge. The New Yorker called Tin Hat Trio’s "haunting and strangely familiar music … a soundtrack for the kind of puzzling dream which leaves you sitting awake in the middle of the night." Having already attracted fans attuned to jazz, classical, and world music, Tin Hat delves even deeper into American roots music — blues, bluegrass, country — on its second CD, Helium, which features a stirring guest vocal by Tom Waits. Such flexibility derives from the diversified backgrounds of the individual members.