CHRIS THILE

Sunday, April 8, 2012, 7 pm
Herbst Theatre $55/$45/$35
Presented in association with San Francisco Performances
tickets-->

Widely regarded as one of the most interesting and inventive musicians of his generation, Chris Thile has revolutionized the mandolin with his combination of unprecedented virtuosity and limitless musical facility.His work as a performer and writer is grounded in a deep respect for his various influences and traditions while it interacts with them in ways previously considered unthinkable or impossible.

The 2009-10 season saw the premiere of Thile’s concerto for mandolin and orchestra, Ad astra per alas porci, co-commissioned by and performed with the symphony orchestras of Colorado, Alabama, Portland and Delaware, the Oregon and Winston-Salem symphonies, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and Interlochen Center for the Arts. Throughout the season, performances of the piece were met with enormous enthusiasm from audiences and lauded by the classical press. After the September 2009 world premiere in Denver, CO, the Denver Post called the piece “stunning” and “a classic,” noting that “it is better to set aside the mandolinist's star status in the bluegrass world and think of him as an up-and-coming classical composer with almost unlimited potential.”

Thile’s band Punch Brothers, comprised of five young and fiercely talented musicians—Chris Thile (mandolin), Gabe Witcher (fiddle), Chris Eldridge (guitar), Noam Pikelny (banjo), and Paul Kowert (bass)—has captured the attention of music lovers across genres. Most recently, the band have received two 2011 Grammy® Award Nominations, and their newest album, Antifogmatic, was released on Nonesuch Records in June 2010. Their critically acclaimed February 2008 Nonesuch Records debut Punch featured Thile’s ambitious four-movement chamber suite “The Blind Leaving the Blind,” which was premiered at Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall as part of John Adams’ “In Your Ear” Festival in 2007. The group’s first album, How to Grow a Woman from the Ground, was also widely praised and was nominated for a Best Country Instrumental Performance Grammy® for the song “The Eleventh Reel.”

For more than 15 years, Thile played in the popular band Nickel Creek, with whom he released three albums for a combined two million records sold, was awarded a Grammy® in 2002, and traveled the world on sold-out concert tours. As a soloist, he has released five albums, on which he conquered a dizzying range of instruments, songwriting challenges, and musical styles. Thile has also performed and recorded extensively as a duo with double bass virtuoso Edgar Meyer (with whom he released an album and toured internationally in the fall of 2008) and with fellow eminent mandolinist Mike Marshall. In April 2007, Mr. Meyer and pianist Emanuel Ax performed a piece for double bass and piano that they commissioned from Thile for a tour including Zankel Hall in New York, the Kennedy Center in Washington DC, and Schermerhorn Symphony Center in Nashville. Additionally, Thile has collaborated with a pantheon of bluegrass innovators including Bela Fleck, Dolly Parton, the Dixie Chicks, Jerry Douglas, and Sam Bush.

Every major mandolin-related award has been presented to Thile over the course of his career, including the National Mandolin Championship at age 12 and the International Bluegrass Music Association’s Mandolinist of the Year. He won a Grammy® Award in 2002 with Nickel Creek for their album This Side in the Best Contemporary Folk Album Category, and he won the 2007 BBC Radio 2 Folk Award for Musician of the Year.

www.imgartists.com/?page=artist&id=811