The Undiscovered: Kevin Hiatt

Creating a wall of sound by slapping, tapping, and plucking on his lushly amplified acoustic guitars, Indiana's Kevin Hiatt has recently released his second CD, entitled Strange Ships On A Blue Horizon. Following in the large footsteps of heroes Michael Hedges and Leo Kottke, Hiatt aims to blow apart conceptions about what fingerstyle music is about, and his instrumentals certainly achieve this lofty goal (the album has a few vocal tracks). Hiatt is an astonishing player, pulling incredible sounds and rich textures out of nowhere to create a wonderful aural experience. He also uses techniques such as two-handed playing and banjo style flailing to up the energy level and keep listener attention at a high level. Hope to hear more instrumentals coming from this talented guitarist in the future.

Kevin born in 1956, grew up in Kansas City, attended the Conservatory of Music and later earned a doctorate in Music Composition from the University of Miami. He has written over 80 works of music including chamber music, electronic music and orchestral pieces. His compositions have been performed in the United States and in Europe. In 1996, Kevin returned to playing steel string guitar. He performs on six-, seven-, and twelve-string guitars employing a variety of altered tunings and unconventional playing techniques. He has composed a large and eclectic body of music for the six-, seven-, and twelve-string guitars.

Hiatt is currently planning to relocate to San Francisco, where he will no doubt be bringing his music to a live audience in support of his latest CD, along with his first album, "Another Look At The Sunrise".

Kevin Hiatt
United States

Web site: www.kevinhiattmusic.com