Mary Halvorson

 Mary Halvorson is a jazz guitarist who works primarily in the avant-garde and free jazz styles but also incorporates elements of classical modern music and post-rock into her music. Her broad range makes her an artist that is not that easy to pin down: she is regularly atonal, harsh and noisy in tone, and jagged in improvisations, then flips the switch and starts playing gentle, ethereal, and melodic, all depending on the nature of her project and who she is playing with. What remains a constant in all this is her originality and fearlessness. She is an outstanding instrumentalist, widely recognized as such, and a forward-looking composer and arranger. She is also a prolific artist who has built quite an impressive catalog over the years, having collaborated with a long list of artists through her collaborations and a variety of bands she has set up over the years.