Carla Kihlstedt is a composer, collaborator, violinist, singer, improviser, educator and instigator. Her musical voice is grounded in the economy and immediacy of song form, which allows her to explore complex worlds – the ocean, dreams, imaginary creatures, the machine age, quarantine – through many different lenses.
Carla’s music is a palimpsest, connecting and layering her divergent musical experiences. After graduating from the Oberlin Conservatory, she spent her 20s and 30s creating and performing music with bands/composers collectives including Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, Tin Hat, 2 Foot Yard, Minamo The Book of Knots and Causing a Tiger. Aesthetically speaking, the Venn Diagram of these would all have only one thing in the shared center space: Carla. But they were united by three other things: their musical clarity, their commitment to collaboration, and the deep friendships that grounded them all. She came away from these years with a rich musical language that continues to feed her current work.
Open to all members of the public
