Guitarist Kaki King to play in Studio Theater

Guitarist Kaki King, who Rolling Stone called “a genre unto herself,” will play at the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford Oct. 12. 

Tickets for the 7 p.m. show in the intimate Studio Theater in Blaisdell Hall are $20 for the public, $15 for faculty, and $5 for students. They can be purchased at www.upb.pitt.edu/TheArts or by calling the Bromeley Family Theater Box Office from 11:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. weekdays at 814-362-5113.  

King’s long and storied musical career includes nine critically acclaimed albums, worldwide solo tours, collaborations with the Foo Fighters and guitarist Eric Johnson, television performances, contribution to a Golden Globe winning score, and the innovation of the Passerelle bridge, a device that turns a six-string guitar into a 12-note instrument.   

She has played across the world in the most prestigious of performance halls, including the Sydney Opera House, Kennedy Center, New York University Abu Dhabi Arts Center and Museum of Modern Art . Not to be confined to concert halls, King has also performed in numerous festivals all over the globe, including the Vancouver Folk Fest, Singapore’s Mosaic Festival and the Japanese Fuji Rock Festival. 

Starting at the age of 4, King was introduced to the guitar by her father, and she would play on and off during her childhood, keeping her innate musical talent throughout. She picked up the instrument during her attendance at NYU, and it clicked for her when she took a trip to the Swannanoa Gathering in North Carolina. 

The gathering is a folk-art community workshop, where she would see the performance that changed her life. “Wow, this is something that really speaks to me. This is what I really want to do,” she said looking back on a performance by guitarist Preston Reed in a MusicRadar interview. “I was about 18 then, I think.” 

With her inspiration, King played wherever she could, mainly at the Mercury Lounge in New York City, where she worked. She built a large enough fan base to sign her first album, “Everybody Loves You.” Since then, she has impressed just about everyone she comes across, including fellow musicians such as Dave Grohl and TV stars like Conan O’Brien. 

By gathering inspiration from the likes of Preston Reed and Kate Bush, King merges the harmonious sounds of the guitar string with the percussive force of her finger picking to create a dazzling mixture of rhythm and melody. With her signature six-stringed Ovation Adamas guitar, King makes art out of just the essentials of a musician. 

Her philosophy when it comes to music is to never stay complacent with what sounds pleasing. In her words from a Guitar Player interview, “you have to shake it up.” The same is true for her live performance, which is about more than the music. Her acts incorporate visual storytelling features through lights, projections, props and body movements.

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