Accomplished alternative folk musician Tim Eriksen will perform in the MUSIC for a CHANGE benefit concert series on Friday, Nov. 13, at 7:30 p.m. in Wilde Auditorium. Tickets are $17.

Eriksen has had an eclectic musical career that began in the late 1980s. He started out playing hardcore punk at New York's notorious CBGB club, and then made the transition to world music, receiving a unique degree in South Indian classical music. He went on to front a Bosnian folk band, Zabe i Babe, followed by an old world folk band, Cordelia's Dad. Now a predominantly solo performer, Eriksen's music is best described as the most hair-raising in folk and alternative music.

Not only is he a highly talented singer-songwriter, but Eriksen is also a master of most string instruments, along with a variety of wind instruments. Eriksen's accomplishments include extensive contributions to films, such as Anthony Minghella's Oscar-winning film Cold Mountain. His work on Cold Mountain included teaching Nicole Kidman, Elvis Costello, and Sting to sing 19th-century American "shape-note" music and leading a group of 40 people in an Academy Awards performance of his own arrangement of Costello's Oscar-nominated song, The Scarlet Tide.

The Amherst, Mass., native is currently director of the Northern Roots Music Collective at Wesleyan University. He has also taught such college courses as "American Balladry," "Global Sounds," "Film Music from Hollywood to Bollywood," "American Music," and "Songwriting" at Dartmouth College, Amherst College, the University of Minnesota, and Hampshire College.

The University of Hartford launched the MUSIC for a CHANGE series in the spring of 2000, with the goal of using music as means of helping the Hartford community. To date, more than $150,000 has been raised for a number of Greater Hartford nonprofit organizations.

For tickets to the concert, call the University box office at 860.768.4228 or 1.800.274.8587, or purchase them online at www.musicforachange.com. For more information about the MUSIC for a CHANGE concert series, go to www.hartford.edu/mfac, or join the MUSIC for a CHANGE Facebook page.