Electronic Press Kit
"Infectious from the get-go."
All About Jazz
Bio
Alexa Torres is a Latinx jazz violinist, composer, and ethnographic researcher based in Austin, TX and New York City. Musically, she seeks to cultivate improvisational and compositional styles which are both historically and personally grounded, prioritizing contemplative melodies, rich harmonic textures, and atypical forms. Torres’s 2024 debut album In Situ has been played across international airwaves like NPR and featured in prestigious media outlets like Strings Magazine and All About Jazz.
Throughout her musical career, Alexa has performed in the US, Latin America, and Europe and has shared 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 Caupolicán (SCL), The Elephant Room Jazz Club (ATX), Monks Jazz Club (ATX), Thelonious lugar de jazz (SCL), the Django (NYC), Soapbox gallery (NYC), South by Southwest, and Festival Internacional Django Reinhardt Chile. In 2019, the album Mundo Zero on which she recorded as a core band member was nominated for the prestigious Chilean Premio Pulsar award.
In 2022, Torres became the first woman and the first violinist to graduate from the University of North Texas (UNT) jazz strings program when she obtained a Master of Music in Jazz Performance in the acclaimed Jazz Studies Department. In 2023, she began a PhD in Jazz Performance at NYU, fully funded by the competitive five-year Steinhardt Fellowship.
Torres views her ethnographic and performance practices as reciprocal, and her playing is deeply informed by her research. Alexa’s work as a researcher and performer has been recognized by competitive awards such as the Fulbright Grant, the Austin Live Music Event Fund Grant, the Presser Graduate Music Award, and the Steinhardt Fellowship.
Long
Alexa Torres is a Latinx jazz violinist, composer, and ethnographic researcher based in Austin, TX and New York City. Musically, she seeks to cultivate improvisational and compositional styles which are both historically and personally grounded, prioritizing contemplative melodies, rich harmonic textures, and atypical forms. Torres’s 2024 debut album In Situ has been played across international airwaves like NPR and featured in prestigious media outlets like Strings Magazine and All About Jazz.
Throughout her musical career, Alexa has performed in the US, Latin America, and Europe and has shared 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 Caupolicán (SCL), The Elephant Room Jazz Club (ATX), Monks Jazz Club (ATX), Thelonious Lugar de Jazz (SCL), the Django (NYC), Soapbox gallery (NYC), South by Southwest, and Festival Internacional Django Reinhardt Chile.
From 2016 – 2020, Torres worked as a free-lance violinist in Santiago, Chile performing regularly within the city’s jazz, fusion, and popular music spaces. During this musically formative time, Torres consistently collaborated with big names in Chilean music. She opened for one of the country’s most well-known musicians, Anna Tijoux, for the debut of Tijoux’s project Roja y Negro and played regularly with Rulo from Los Tetas for presentations of his folk-pop album Vendaval. Torres also performed with Mon Laferte as part of the Chilean leg of her international Amárrame tour. In 2020, the jazz fusion album Mundo Zero on which Torres recorded as a core band member of Ensamble de Luz was nominated for the prestigious Chilean Premio Pulsar award (the Chilean equivalent of a Grammy).
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.
Torres views her ethnographic and performance practices as reciprocal; her playing is deeply informed by her research as she aims to construct a musical lexicon which temporally connects the past, present, and future. Torres’s research is published in peer-reviewed journals of music education and social sciences. In addition to her MM in jazz performance, Torres holds a BA with a triple major in in cultural anthropology, plan II honors, and Latin American studies from the University of Texas, Austin. Her work as a researcher and performer has been recognized by competitive awards such as the Fulbright Grant, the Presser Graduate Music Award, the Austin Live Music Grant, and the Steinhardt Fellowship.
Short
Alexa Torres is a Latinx jazz violinist, composer, and ethnographic researcher based in Austin, TX and New York City. Throughout her musical career, she has performed in the US, Latin America, and Europe and has had the privilege of sharing the stage with Grammy-winning artists such as Kurt Elling and Mon Laferte. Musically, she seeks to cultivate improvisational and compositional styles which are both historically and personally grounded, prioritizing contemplative melodies, rich harmonic textures, and atypical forms. Torres’s 2024 debut album In Situ has been played across international airwaves like NPR and featured in prestigious media outlets like Strings Magazine and All About Jazz.
Quotes
"She brings a wide open palette to the proceedings. Knowing through science and instinct, study and practice, that any particular piece of song, of style, of flavor and flourish works to create the whole panoramic story."
All About Jazz
"Alexa is one of the rare violinists to have succeeded in adapting the violin to jazz... a great talent to follow closely, who surely has not finished surprising us"
Alexandre Cavaliere (Biréli Lagrene, Toots Thielemans, Dennis Chambers, Richard Bona)
"Together with guitarist Mario Wellmann, bassist Josh Newburry and drummer Jordan Proffer, they created six tracks between the past and the future, merging bebop, contemporary and Latin influences into a musical and cultural unity."
Er-Em Magazine (Germany)
"Alexa is a talented and soulful jazz violinist with a bright future ahead of her. Her debut recording is a major statement and I look forward to hearing what she comes up with in the future!"
Davy Mooney (Brian Blade, John Pizzarelli, Jon Cowherd)
About In Situ
"An “artifact” of a special kind!"
Er-Em Magazine (Germany)
Released in June of 2024, In Situ was heralded by All About Jazz as an "ear and eye opening" album with “inquisitive gusto” that is “full of grand histories.” It was included on Couleurs Jazz Radio’s “best releases of the month” curation and featured in prestigious media outlets like Strings Magazine and Women in Jazz Media. It has been played across airwaves in the USA and Europe such as NPR (USA), Coulers Jazz Radio (France), and Jazzkultura (Poland).
In situ is an archaeological term which refers to the original position of an artifact found in place. When she was 21, Torres spent five weeks excavating Maya ruins in the Belizean jungle. When she found her first artifact, she felt a sense of awe and temporal connection, that she drew on years later when recording In Situ. This sense of temporal connection is reflected in the album’s textures, improvisational languages, and inclusion of both original compositions and arrangements of jazz standards.
In July of 2022, Alexa set out on a one-year trip to interview and collaborate with jazz violinists across Belgium, France, and Poland. She recorded In Situ in preparation for this journey, to internally reflect on the places and experiences that influence her personal musical positionality before turning her gaze externally to new soundscapes. Intertwining Latinx rhythms, devices stemming from modern jazz, and improvisation, In Situ reflects an intimate engagement with the jazz tradition and Torres’s Latinx heritage.
Alexa’s violin is supported by a rhythm section of talented musicians: Mario Wellmann on guitar, Josh Newburry on bass, and Jordan Proffer on drums. Weaving an aural landscape that is both historically and personally grounded, In Situ sculpts a sonic bridge between the past and present, between tradition and innovation, and between musical idioms and cultures.
Press
Strings Magazine Feature (July/August 2024)
Interview with Joe Dimino (Neon Jazz, 2024)
Reviews for In Situ
All About Jazz
With balletic verve, Latin violinist Alexa Torres goes about her debut disc, the hugely confident, ear and eye opening In Situ, with an inquisitive gusto and aplomb that belies her thirty-one years.
A skilled, peer-reviewed ethnographic researcher, Torres is also the first woman and first violinist to graduate from the University of North Texas jazz strings program. And she brings a wide open palette to the proceedings. Knowing through science and instinct, study and practice, that any particular piece of song, of style, of flavor and flourish works to create the whole panoramic story. In Situ is full of grand histories.
Take for instance the very first track, Wayne Shorter's "Yes Or No" from his classic JuJu (Blue Note, 1965). By its title alone, it appears cut and dry enough to convince any jury. But Torres' muse is swirling from the get-go. And it is infectious from the get-go. So, not wanting the lady to have all the fun, Fender Rhodes sounding guitarist Mario Wellmann, quick witted bassist Josh Newberry and drummer Jordan Proffer jump in head first and the track whirls. Subtle but more abstract in design, "When the Wind Breaks the Chime" evolves from its free form origins to a more structured sense of composition while tts melodic bent inspires the layman to hum along. It is a neat trick and one hopes others in the jazz field emulate.
Benny Golson's "Along Came Betty" is one of those oh-so-easy swaying concoctions that places the here and now in a much sunnier and much better place. Wellman's clear, sparkling tones dance opposite to and in synch with Torres on "Consolidation" while Newberry and Praffer juggle the rhythmic details between them. Torres and company close out with a hot take on Thelonious Monk's "We See," a jump blues percolator that leaves one wanting more. The only complaint? In Situ entices for just barely forty minutes. Hopefully that means more for her next outing.
By Mike Jurkovic
Er-Em Magazine (Germany)
In situ (“on site”) is a technical term which can mean, for example, “directly on site” or “in the original position”. In archaeology: a find is still in its original position, or an object is still at the place where it was previously used, i.e. it has not been relocated, for example, by geological processes or subsequent human or animal activities. Alexa Torres, a trained classical violinist with a jazz background, chose this term as the title of her debut album for a specific reason: “When I was 21, I spent five weeks excavating Maya ruins in the Belizean jungle… I remember the sense of awe I felt when I finally dug up an artifact. It was a scraper – a type of tool, carved out of stone. As I held it, I thought about how I was likely the first person to touch it in over a thousand years, and I imagined stories about the people who had used the tool before me so long ago. I wanted to bring that very particular feeling of awe to this album. The term in situ evokes a sense of rediscovery and recontextualization which are processes that I think play a big role in improvisation…”. Together with guitarist Mario Wellmann, bassist Josh Newburry and drummer Jordan Proffer, they created six tracks between the past and the future, merging bebop, contemporary and Latin influences into a musical and cultural unity. I particularly like the solo duets between Torres' electric and acoustic violin and Wellmann's relaxed, swinging six-string. An "artifact" of a special kind that would be appreciated by a large number of listeners. Recommended!
Additional press and radio
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