Alexa Torres Skillicorn is a Latinx improvising violinist with a background in jazz. She is a performer, band leader, and ethnographic music researcher based in New York City and Austin, Texas. Musically, she seeks to cultivate improvisational and compositional styles that are both historically and personally rooted, embodying a dialogue between tradition and innovation in jazz. She recently recorded her forthcoming debut album entitled In Situ.
Throughout her musical career, Torres has performed in the US, Latin America, and Europe and has had the privilege of sharing the stage with renowned, Grammy-winning artists such as Kurt Elling and Mon Laferte. She has played in a diverse array of venues and festivals including Carnegie Hall (NYC), Teatro Caupolican (SCL), The Elephant Room Jazz Club (ATX), South by Southwest, and Festival Internacional Django Reinhardt Chile. In 2019, the album Mundo Zero on which she recorded as a core band member of Ensemble de Luz was nominated for the prestigious Chilean Premio Pulsar award.
Breaking new ground in the world of improvised strings, in 2022 Torres became the first woman and the first violinist to graduate from the University of North Texas (UNT) jazz strings program. At UNT, she obtained a Master of Music in Jazz Performance in the acclaimed Jazz Studies Department, completing coursework in jazz violin with Scott Tixier; improvisation with Dave Meder, Davy Mooney, and Philip Dizack; and jazz arranging with Rich Derosa. She is currently pursuing a PhD in Jazz Performance at New York University, fully funded by the competitive five-year Steinhardt Fellowship. There, she’s had the opportunity to work with jazz luminaries like Dave Liebman and Sara Caswell.
This June 14th the artist releases her latest project titled ‘In Situ’ featuring the talents of Mario Wellmann (guitar) Josh Newburry (bass) and Jordan Proffer (drums) Discussing the project, the artist shares, “I recorded this album right after I had finished my master’s degree in jazz violin from The University of North Texas. It was real transition moment – I was preparing to leave the country for an extended period of time, I was in the process of moving, and my future was uncertain. And I really wanted to use this record as an opportunity to sit in that liminal space between where you are coming from and where you are going. I wanted to use it as an opportunity to reflect not just on this deep digging into jazz traditions I did in my master’s, and what it means to try to transfer these traditions to the violin, but to move further into the past to also reflect on my Cuban heritage, and on the years I spent living and performing in Chile. I saw this album a sort of excavation of my own past, and also as a deeply personal, multilayered syncretism. When I say this, I mean that I saw it as a way of integrating the different physical spaces I’ve occupied, the various soundscapes I’ve encountered in those spaces, and also of uniting my research and performance practices.”
For further information on the artist, please visit
- https://www.facebook.com/alexatorresmusic/
- https://www.instagram.com/alexatorresmusic/
- http://www.alexatorresmusic.com
Source/Images provided courtesy of Chris DiGirolamo
About Author
