Local 913, Episode 74: Sol Persona

Originally from Saxonburg, PA, Karter Schachner, who records under the name “Sol Persona,” began his interest in music at a young age in school beginning with the trombone to joining a rock band in high school. After he began going to Slippery Rock University for music, his focus shifted to creating more experimental and avant-garde. Even though being a student and appreciator of classic music, Schachner found inspiration there to create more experimental sounds:
“You have to know the rules to break them! I feel like classic music has influenced what I do, particularly in the musicality and the approach, like the swelling lines. Just the sense of beauty of what I got from doing classic is applicable, but maybe not the structure and the tonality of it. I really enjoyed going into a voice lesson and where it was like ‘Let’s just talk about beauty for an hour!’ That was always my favorite! Phillips Glass is one of my heroes as far as doing avant-garde music and making powerful things in a minimalist way. We didn’t study him in school, but he was somebody that I could take that classical background and apply that avant-garde sense to music.”
For more on Sol Persona, check out their Facebook.