Biography
Susan Alcorn works as a pedal steel guitarist, improviser, composer, and bandleader whose efforts have broadened the instrument’s presence well beyond country music. Her own pieces draw on free jazz, avant-garde classical music, Indian raga, and numerous indigenous traditions from around the globe. The 2000 solo recording Uma first established her standing, which Sur (2002), Curandera (2003), And I Await the Resurrection of the Pedal Steel Guitar (2005), and Touch This Moment (2010) further solidified. The 2015 solo album Soledad paid tribute to Astor Piazzolla through performances of his works. A year afterward she issued the solo set Evening Tales while also appearing on Mary Halvorson’s Away with You and on Nate Wooley’s Columbia Icefield in 2018. Heart Sutra from 2020 received widespread international praise. In 2023 Alcorn and a Chilean ensemble recorded Canto, which blends folk, nueva canción, free improvisation, and contemporary classical music.
Born into a musical family in Cleveland, Ohio, Alcorn’s first encounters with sound came from sitting beneath her mother’s piano and operating the pedal. At home she absorbed the big-band jazz and classical music favored by her parents, while her transistor radio introduced her to pop ranging from Petula Clark and the Beatles to Aretha Franklin, Bobby Bland, and James Brown. At age 13 she took up guitar and developed a strong connection to the slide styles of Son House, Robert Johnson, Willie McTell, and Muddy Waters, along with the dobro innovations of Mike Auldridge, Josh Graves, and Tut Taylor, concentrating her playing on slide technique. At 16 she heard John Coltrane’s “Invocation to Om” on FM radio, purchased the album, and soon afterward encountered Edgard Varese’s “Ameriques” in the same manner; both experiences laid groundwork for her wide-ranging explorations. While in college in 1975 she witnessed a pedal steel performance at a club and immediately purchased an instrument the following afternoon, teaching herself from that point forward.
She eventually performed with country & western and swing bands in the Chicago area. Lacking full command of the instrument at the outset, she received little tolerance from fellow musicians, an experience she later described as beneficial because it sharpened her listening, kept her from losing her place, and helped her cultivate resilience. She studied canonical pedal steel recordings by Lloyd Greene, Buddy Emmons, and others, while also immersing herself in twentieth-century classical music, electric blues, and free and spiritual jazz, and she took occasional group lessons from Emmons.
Alcorn relocated to Houston, Texas, in 1981. The city’s thriving clubs featured nightly country & western swing performances, where she heard Cliff Bruner, Bucky Meadows, Herb Remington, and Ernie Hunter and occasionally joined them onstage. She studied jazz improvisation with Dr. Conrad Johnson, whose pentatonic methods she credits as central to her growth. Although she has retained a lasting affection for country music and continues to perform it, the allure of the mysterious and spiritual dimensions of sound, space, and dissonance opened boundless avenues for improvisational inquiry. In 1990 she met composer Pauline Oliveros, who introduced her to the deep listening practice of attending to sound apart from surrounding context. In 1997 Alcorn gave her first solo performance at an arts space, stepping onstage without a preconceived plan, meeting the audience’s gaze, and beginning to improvise—an encounter that revealed a new sense of adventure and intimacy and prompted her to make improvisation the basis of nearly all subsequent concerts.
Her debut album Uma appeared in 2000 on Dove Records, engineered by Tom Carter of Charalambides and featuring sparse contributions from bells and trombone. Limited coverage in journals and magazines brought notice from European critics and the American vanguard community. Two years later she followed with the CD-R Sur. Curandera, another solo steel guitar release, came out in 2003 and included her own compositions and improvisations alongside Curtis Mayfield’s “People Get Ready” and Olivier Messiaen’s “Sacrum Convivium.” The 2004 improvised ensemble recording Concentration, featuring Joe McPhee, Andrea Parkins, Audrey Chen, and additional musicians, attracted considerable attention across Europe, Asia, and the United States. Two years afterward she issued And I Await the Resurrection of the Pedal Steel Guitar, another solo effort that concluded with a disguised composition by Domenico Modugno.
In 2007 Alcorn and her family settled in Baltimore. She and violinist/violist LaDonna Smith privately released Ambient Visage. In 2009 she appeared on the “Giving Out” portion of saxophonist/vocalist Caroline Kraabel’s double album In the Garden City/Giving Out, with pianist Annie Lewandowski featured on the remaining tracks. She opened the 2010s by issuing the widely praised improvised solo recording Touch This Moment and embarking on international tours. Months later she released A&B, a free jazz improvisation with guitarist George Burt. Beyond her own concerts she collaborated with numerous vanguard musicians worldwide. In 2012 she and Russian guitarist Misha Feigin issued The Other Side of Reflections, and the following year she joined bassist Michael Formanek and saxophonist Ellery Eskelin for the free jazz date Mirage on Clean Feed.
Her reach extended to tango, classical, and world music listeners in 2015 with the Relative Pitch release Soledad. The five-track album comprised one original piece and four compositions by Argentine nuevo tango composer Astor Piazzolla, delivered with discipline, sensitivity, and restraint that offered a fresh perspective on his work. Formanek accompanied her on the original “Suite for AHL.” During a tour break she rejoined Feigin for The Crossing, then eight months afterward issued Evening Tales, a collection of nine improvisations accompanied by liner notes from musician/comedian Angela Sawyer. Later that year the live quartet recording 2.14.15 appeared digitally on Liminal Sounds, presenting four improvisations with trombonists Alex Heitlinger and Steve Parker plus Austin-based pedal steel guitarist Bob Hoffnar.
In 2017 Alcorn, Ken Vandermark, and Joe McPhee convened for the first time as a trio in an Austin studio after each had been invited separately to Ingebrigt Håker Flaten’s Sonic Transmission Festival. Their album Invitation to a Dream emerged on Astral Spirits in 2019, followed by three further collaborations—Live at Rotunda with drummer Chris Corsano and guitarist Bill Nace, Susan Alcorn, Norman Adams, Tim Crofts on Suddenly Listen Music, and Prism Mirror Lens with saxophonist Phillip Greenlief—all of which drew notice in the international press. Sister Mirror in 2020 gathered two previously unreleased collaborations: a performance of Heitor Villa-Lobos’s Bachianas Brasileiras featuring cellist Janel Leppin and vocalist Habibzai, together with a live recording by Leppin and Alcorn captured at Baltimore’s 2640 Space in 2012. The same year brought Heart Sutra, a major archival ensemble work also recorded at the Baltimore venue and released on Stephen O’Malley’s Ideologic Organ label. The recording presented Alcorn’s original compositions arranged by Leppin and performed in 2012 by vocalist Jessika Kenney, violist Eyvind Kang, bassist Skúli Sverrisson, cellist Leppin, guitarist Anthony Pirog, and clarinetist Doug Wieselman.
The Susan Alcorn Quintet’s Pedernal, recorded the same year for Relative Pitch and issued in September 2021, marked her highest-profile release to date. The ensemble—violinist Mark Feldman, guitarist Mary Halvorson, bassist Michael Formanek, and drummer Ryan Sawyer—rendered her compositions with discipline and inspiration while incorporating scripted improvisational passages. That year also saw the release of multi-instrumentalist/composer Thollem McDonas’s wholly improvised Astral Traveling Sessions with Alex Cline and Alcorn on Astral Spirits, alongside the trio album Bird Meets Wire by Alcorn, saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock, and cellist Leila Bordreuil on Relative Pitch.
In March 2022 Alcorn, clarinetist Patrick Holmes, and drummer Ryan Sawyer recorded a fully improvised performance at Brooklyn’s Union Pool, issued by Relative Pitch as From Union Pool in January 2023. In November 2022 the lifelong social justice activist traveled to Chile, where she had first visited in 2003 to study the language and regional music and had become captivated by the musicians, activists, poets, former exiles, and concentration camp survivors. Deeper engagement with the country’s musical traditions revealed that many Chilean songs were inseparable from its history. She was especially moved by nueva canción, the socially conscious folk style outlawed and harshly suppressed during Augusto Pinochet’s seventeen-year rule, when instruments were banned and artists faced exile, arrest, or murder.
While in Chile Alcorn formed Septeto Del Sur, whose members include guitarist Lulu “Toto” Alvarez, bassist Amanda Irrazabal, northern Chilean drummer and cuatro player Claudio “Pajaro” Araya, his brother Pancho Araya on charanga and flute, nueva canción veterans Rodrigo Bobadilla on guitar and flute, and violinist Danka Villanueva. The group recorded Canto, comprising five Alcorn compositions that allow ample space for improvisation together with a reading of Chilean martyr Victor Jara’s “El Derecho de Vivir en Paz.” Relative Pitch released the album in November 2023.
Born into a musical family in Cleveland, Ohio, Alcorn’s first encounters with sound came from sitting beneath her mother’s piano and operating the pedal. At home she absorbed the big-band jazz and classical music favored by her parents, while her transistor radio introduced her to pop ranging from Petula Clark and the Beatles to Aretha Franklin, Bobby Bland, and James Brown. At age 13 she took up guitar and developed a strong connection to the slide styles of Son House, Robert Johnson, Willie McTell, and Muddy Waters, along with the dobro innovations of Mike Auldridge, Josh Graves, and Tut Taylor, concentrating her playing on slide technique. At 16 she heard John Coltrane’s “Invocation to Om” on FM radio, purchased the album, and soon afterward encountered Edgard Varese’s “Ameriques” in the same manner; both experiences laid groundwork for her wide-ranging explorations. While in college in 1975 she witnessed a pedal steel performance at a club and immediately purchased an instrument the following afternoon, teaching herself from that point forward.
She eventually performed with country & western and swing bands in the Chicago area. Lacking full command of the instrument at the outset, she received little tolerance from fellow musicians, an experience she later described as beneficial because it sharpened her listening, kept her from losing her place, and helped her cultivate resilience. She studied canonical pedal steel recordings by Lloyd Greene, Buddy Emmons, and others, while also immersing herself in twentieth-century classical music, electric blues, and free and spiritual jazz, and she took occasional group lessons from Emmons.
Alcorn relocated to Houston, Texas, in 1981. The city’s thriving clubs featured nightly country & western swing performances, where she heard Cliff Bruner, Bucky Meadows, Herb Remington, and Ernie Hunter and occasionally joined them onstage. She studied jazz improvisation with Dr. Conrad Johnson, whose pentatonic methods she credits as central to her growth. Although she has retained a lasting affection for country music and continues to perform it, the allure of the mysterious and spiritual dimensions of sound, space, and dissonance opened boundless avenues for improvisational inquiry. In 1990 she met composer Pauline Oliveros, who introduced her to the deep listening practice of attending to sound apart from surrounding context. In 1997 Alcorn gave her first solo performance at an arts space, stepping onstage without a preconceived plan, meeting the audience’s gaze, and beginning to improvise—an encounter that revealed a new sense of adventure and intimacy and prompted her to make improvisation the basis of nearly all subsequent concerts.
Her debut album Uma appeared in 2000 on Dove Records, engineered by Tom Carter of Charalambides and featuring sparse contributions from bells and trombone. Limited coverage in journals and magazines brought notice from European critics and the American vanguard community. Two years later she followed with the CD-R Sur. Curandera, another solo steel guitar release, came out in 2003 and included her own compositions and improvisations alongside Curtis Mayfield’s “People Get Ready” and Olivier Messiaen’s “Sacrum Convivium.” The 2004 improvised ensemble recording Concentration, featuring Joe McPhee, Andrea Parkins, Audrey Chen, and additional musicians, attracted considerable attention across Europe, Asia, and the United States. Two years afterward she issued And I Await the Resurrection of the Pedal Steel Guitar, another solo effort that concluded with a disguised composition by Domenico Modugno.
In 2007 Alcorn and her family settled in Baltimore. She and violinist/violist LaDonna Smith privately released Ambient Visage. In 2009 she appeared on the “Giving Out” portion of saxophonist/vocalist Caroline Kraabel’s double album In the Garden City/Giving Out, with pianist Annie Lewandowski featured on the remaining tracks. She opened the 2010s by issuing the widely praised improvised solo recording Touch This Moment and embarking on international tours. Months later she released A&B, a free jazz improvisation with guitarist George Burt. Beyond her own concerts she collaborated with numerous vanguard musicians worldwide. In 2012 she and Russian guitarist Misha Feigin issued The Other Side of Reflections, and the following year she joined bassist Michael Formanek and saxophonist Ellery Eskelin for the free jazz date Mirage on Clean Feed.
Her reach extended to tango, classical, and world music listeners in 2015 with the Relative Pitch release Soledad. The five-track album comprised one original piece and four compositions by Argentine nuevo tango composer Astor Piazzolla, delivered with discipline, sensitivity, and restraint that offered a fresh perspective on his work. Formanek accompanied her on the original “Suite for AHL.” During a tour break she rejoined Feigin for The Crossing, then eight months afterward issued Evening Tales, a collection of nine improvisations accompanied by liner notes from musician/comedian Angela Sawyer. Later that year the live quartet recording 2.14.15 appeared digitally on Liminal Sounds, presenting four improvisations with trombonists Alex Heitlinger and Steve Parker plus Austin-based pedal steel guitarist Bob Hoffnar.
In 2017 Alcorn, Ken Vandermark, and Joe McPhee convened for the first time as a trio in an Austin studio after each had been invited separately to Ingebrigt Håker Flaten’s Sonic Transmission Festival. Their album Invitation to a Dream emerged on Astral Spirits in 2019, followed by three further collaborations—Live at Rotunda with drummer Chris Corsano and guitarist Bill Nace, Susan Alcorn, Norman Adams, Tim Crofts on Suddenly Listen Music, and Prism Mirror Lens with saxophonist Phillip Greenlief—all of which drew notice in the international press. Sister Mirror in 2020 gathered two previously unreleased collaborations: a performance of Heitor Villa-Lobos’s Bachianas Brasileiras featuring cellist Janel Leppin and vocalist Habibzai, together with a live recording by Leppin and Alcorn captured at Baltimore’s 2640 Space in 2012. The same year brought Heart Sutra, a major archival ensemble work also recorded at the Baltimore venue and released on Stephen O’Malley’s Ideologic Organ label. The recording presented Alcorn’s original compositions arranged by Leppin and performed in 2012 by vocalist Jessika Kenney, violist Eyvind Kang, bassist Skúli Sverrisson, cellist Leppin, guitarist Anthony Pirog, and clarinetist Doug Wieselman.
The Susan Alcorn Quintet’s Pedernal, recorded the same year for Relative Pitch and issued in September 2021, marked her highest-profile release to date. The ensemble—violinist Mark Feldman, guitarist Mary Halvorson, bassist Michael Formanek, and drummer Ryan Sawyer—rendered her compositions with discipline and inspiration while incorporating scripted improvisational passages. That year also saw the release of multi-instrumentalist/composer Thollem McDonas’s wholly improvised Astral Traveling Sessions with Alex Cline and Alcorn on Astral Spirits, alongside the trio album Bird Meets Wire by Alcorn, saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock, and cellist Leila Bordreuil on Relative Pitch.
In March 2022 Alcorn, clarinetist Patrick Holmes, and drummer Ryan Sawyer recorded a fully improvised performance at Brooklyn’s Union Pool, issued by Relative Pitch as From Union Pool in January 2023. In November 2022 the lifelong social justice activist traveled to Chile, where she had first visited in 2003 to study the language and regional music and had become captivated by the musicians, activists, poets, former exiles, and concentration camp survivors. Deeper engagement with the country’s musical traditions revealed that many Chilean songs were inseparable from its history. She was especially moved by nueva canción, the socially conscious folk style outlawed and harshly suppressed during Augusto Pinochet’s seventeen-year rule, when instruments were banned and artists faced exile, arrest, or murder.
While in Chile Alcorn formed Septeto Del Sur, whose members include guitarist Lulu “Toto” Alvarez, bassist Amanda Irrazabal, northern Chilean drummer and cuatro player Claudio “Pajaro” Araya, his brother Pancho Araya on charanga and flute, nueva canción veterans Rodrigo Bobadilla on guitar and flute, and violinist Danka Villanueva. The group recorded Canto, comprising five Alcorn compositions that allow ample space for improvisation together with a reading of Chilean martyr Victor Jara’s “El Derecho de Vivir en Paz.” Relative Pitch released the album in November 2023.
Albums
