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Photos by Naomi Libby
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Bio
Kat Wallace and David Sasso met playing hard and fast bluegrass with New Haven string band Five ‘n Change (formerly Five in the Chamber). Their shared background in classical music and affinity for all things trad brought them together to form an intimate and virtuosic duo. With fiddle and a variety of mandolin-family instruments, Wallace and Sasso orbit around traditional folk, original songwriting, and the ever-evolving boundaries of Americana music. Their effortless vocal lines and innovative harmonies command the stage while allowing space for each song to tell its story. Their debut album, Stuff of Stars, released in 2019 to critical acclaim, paved the way for their highly anticipated sophomore album, Old Habits, released in October 2021. Both projects were recorded, mixed, and mastered at Dimension Sound Studios in Boston.
The duo’s second album, Old Habits, draws upon Kat and David's classical backgrounds to create inventive arrangements that both capture and extend the aesthetic of traditional song and tune. This album showcases their virtuosity and knowledge of harmony and form, presenting mostly original songs that are at once deeply familiar and assuredly innovative. Evolving from the transparent duo sound of Stuff of Stars, Old Habits features a full band, with Brittany Karlson on bass and Ariel Bernstein on drums. The songs reflect on the cyclical nature of life, love, and loss, taking inspiration from the isolation and pain of the past year's pandemic while reaching to find beauty and meaning in the trials and tribulations of the human experience. The album showcases Kat and David's individual and complementary songwriting styles and includes a cast of very special guests showcased on a joyful bluegrass instrumental track entitled "Somes Pond." Old Habits was recorded, mixed, mastered, and produced by Dan Cardinal at Dimension Sound Studios in Boston and released on October 1st, 2021.
Kat is a 1st year masters student at New England Conservatory in the Contemporary Improvisation department. Specializing in American and Celtic fiddle styles, her music making centers around original and traditional tunes and songs utilizing tenor guitar, fiddle, viola and voice. She’s also a founding member of the Askia Quartet established at NEC in 2021. Before moving to Boston, Wallace graduated from Ithaca College School of Music in 2016 with a degree in violin performance and spent the years after college building a private studio and performing in various projects around her hometown of Guilford, CT. Outside of Kat’s studies and work with David, she tours and records with Rachel Sumner and Traveling Light, winner of the John Lennon Folk song competition. She’s also working closely with the community at famed folk venue, Club Passim, in Cambridge and looks forward to continuing her education and performing in and around Boston!
David completed a Bachelor of Music in Music Composition at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, where he recorded two albums as a member of the Pro Arte Singers. Prior to college, David was the youngest composer, at age 16, to have a work premiered by the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. In 2003, the Indianapolis Children's Choir premiered David’s full length original opera, The Trio of Minuet, featuring children as the main characters and performers. The opera was broadcast on PBS stations nationwide. David has several pieces for children's choir published and performed around the country. In recent years, he has become increasingly involved in the world of mandolin-family instruments and an active member of the Connecticut traditional music scene. After college, David went on to medical school and now works full-time as a psychiatrist.
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Press and praise
“…superb musicianship…more infectious than Omicron…”
"Kat and David will give you the feeling of a long hug with their music, which is beautifully arranged and wonderfully performed. I highly recommend listening to them while cozying up with a cup of coffee, or a glass of wine, depending on the time..."
Grammy-winning cellist Mike Block
“On Old Habits, Kat Wallace and David Sasso have managed to gracefully find that thing we're all chasing after: a sound that is at once both familiar and new. The melodies, songs, playing and singing feel like old friends who have something new to share with us. I'm loving this new record.
Mandolinist Joe K. Walsh
“Old Habits contains an abundant spectrum of beauty within it - natural, earthy sounds and sparkling, ethereal moments that surround poetic songs sharing stories and yearnings we can all relate to.”
Singer-songwriter Rachel Sumner
“New smokin’ good original music for violin and mandolin…”
...at once both fresh and aged.
Vocally, Sasso, especially, has a voice that sounds as if it has echoed down the ages; were the crackle of ancient vinyl present, it might have come straight from the Bristol Sessions of 1927.
Wallace, meanwhile, helps bring their sound up to date, her clear voice never over-powering the songs beneath, but lending a harmonic lilt which is easy on the ear and gives the record a warmth which compliments the more austere tones of Sasso.
...songs such as ‘Rain On my Windows’, ‘The Great Conjunction’ and ‘After Our Fall’ have a lineage from the likes of Kate Wolf, Tom Paxton, Pete Seeger, and even further back...
...it is subtle and understated. This is to the credit of the pair, who (like the band around them) clearly have the musical chops to take flight, but consistently ease back on overplaying, and so allow the songs to breathe in the natural light.
‘Old Habits’ is highly recommended if your tastes run to unfettered mountain music, traditional folk and bluegrass. It carries musical echoes of the earliest work of Alison Krauss and Nickel Creek, not to mention the old-time stylings of Gillian Welch and David Rawlings. A very worthy addition to the folk/bluegrass/singer-songwriter genre, this record carries a real sense that there is plenty more to come, while giving the listener so much to enjoy with the songs that are here now.
“On Old Habits, Wallace and Sasso don’t break the boundaries of bluegrass so much as they glide past them, venturing into a wider territory while never quite forgetting where they started.”
“...richly poetic, musically tight and heartfelt…”
“Stuff Of Stars criss-crosses lyrical (and briefly, cosmic) territory, equal parts sumptuous and sparse…”
“They are smart and literary but also unpretentious, sometimes funny and quite winsome, with a musical grab bag of tricks that keeps giving.”
“...exuberant and intoxicating…”
Arts Paper (Arts Council of Greater New Haven) - click for full album review
“Both lyrically and musically, this kind of mix of found sources and original material, the planting of feet in traditional music while finding plenty of room to stretch out, permeates the entire album, making Stuff of Stars a thoughtfully innovative record.”
“…familiar enough to be welcoming, yet with enough chromaticism to keep things interesting and eerily beautiful. Wallace and Sasso unfurl knotty harmonies with ease before Wallace takes flight on a sweeping solo that the cello answers. Then they bring it all quietly home.”