The Celebrity Series of Boston brings popular artists, speakers and performers to Boston, focusing on classical, jazz, and folk music, modern dance and multi-media. This coming Sunday, Oct. 12, mandolin player Chris Thile and bassist Edgar Meyer will perform at Harvard’s Sanders Theatre. The duo is known for using their unlikely combination of instruments to walk the lines between contemporary classical, bluegrass, folk, rock and jazz.
Thile and Meyer, both previously awarded with the MacArthur Fellowship, known as the “genius grant,” have had a 15-year history of collaboration. They have recorded three albums together, including this year’s “Bass & Mandolin” and 2013’s Grammy award-winning “Goat Rodeo Sessions” with fiddler Stuart Duncan and cellist Yo-Yo Ma.
Thile is a member of Punch Brothers, a contemporary acoustic bluegrass and classical band consisting of mandolin, fiddle, banjo, guitar and bass. In addition to being a mandolin virtuoso, Thile is also a composer and vocalist. Though he composes and performs music in a broad range of genres, Thile still has strong ties to classical roots; in 2013, he released “Bach Sonatas & Partitas Vol. 1,” produced by Meyer.
Meyer is also both a performer and a composer and has released many records with classical music ensembles such as the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. His works have been performed at the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s Tanglewood Festival and at the Hollywood Bowl with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Meyer collaborates frequently with other prominent artists such as banjo player Béla Fleck, mandolin player Mike Marshall, and violinists Hilary Hahn and Joshua Bell.
Thile and Meyer are also known for their onstage energy and chemistry, and will bring a night of engaging, genre-bending music to Sanders Theatre. This concert is a must-see.
Chris Thile and Edgar Meyer will perform at Harvard’s Sanders Theatre on Sunday, Oct. 12 at 7 p.m. Tickets start at $30 and can be purchased online at www.celebrityseries.org.
Watch Chris Thile, Edgar Meyer, Stuart Duncan, and Yo-Yo Ma perform in NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert series:
Featured Photo by David McClister, courtesy of Celebrity Series of Boston
