Interference Series Presents Catherine Sikora and Eric Mingus (NYC)

Catherine Sikora and Eric Mingus create music that lives in the bones and breath—where improvisation becomes language, and sound becomes a vessel for history, place, and presence. Catherine Sikora is a tenor and soprano saxophonist, composer, and improviser whose playing carries the deep imprint of natural landscapes and sonic exploration.  With sixteen albums as leader or co-leader, Sikora’s work spans collaborations with artists such as Susan Alcorn, Brian Chase, and Ursel Schlicht. Her music has been featured on BBC’s Freeness, Free Jazz Blog, and festivals including Jazz em Agosto (Lisbon), Vision Festival (NYC), Documenta 15 (Germany), and the Adelaide Festival of the Arts.

Eric Mingus is a vocalist, composer, poet, and multi-instrumentalist whose career defies categorization. With a voice that can move from thunder to lullaby, and a creative lineage rooted in the legacy of Black American music, Mingus works at the intersection of jazz, blues, punk, poetry, and performance art. He has collaborated with artists including Howard Johnson, Elliott Sharp, Hubert Sumlin and Levon Helm, while developing his own multidisciplinary works such as The Mill—an ongoing project that explores ancestral memory, survival, and storytelling in the Great Smoky Mountains. He leads the Sacred Routes Vocal Ensemble, using words and melody to trace the roots of our human connection.

Their work reflects their distinct cultural lineages—Ireland and the Black American South—and honors both the intimacy of collaboration and the expansiveness of improvisation.