The Electro-Acoustic Cupcake Festival is back for its third year, featuring an incredible gathering of international improvisers: vocal chameleon Shelley Hirsch (NYC), Henry Cow co-founder Tim Hodgkinson (London) on lap steel and clarinet, Thomas Lehn on analog synth (Germany), iconoclastic bassist Evan Lipson (TN/Philly), the Ol' Timey Avant-Garde of the Shaking Ray Levis (TN), and the incomparable percussionist Roger Turner (London). Opening the show will be a lesson in gnome mythology, given by the River of the Pink Lady and Strawberry Pork Chop.

“One of the most exciting improv groups in the world” - The Wire, on Konk Pack (featuring Hodgkinson, Lehn, and Turner)

“Hirsch is an extraordinary vocalist…enormously inventive, scathingly satiric and virtuosic… A brilliant, overwhelming presence on stage” – Peter Watrous, New York Times

“…Stunning, psychologically naked, haunting…wild beautiful energy…her dramatic stream of consciousness singing is as original as anything downtown.” – Kyle Gann, Village Voice, on Shelley Hirsch