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Edgar Meyer, double bass & Chris Thile, mandolin An Evening of Meyer/Thile Originals and Bach Thursday, October 2, 8pm
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—San Diego Magazine
Program
Original works co-written by EDGAR MEYER and CHRIS THILE, and arrangements of J.S. BACH
About This Performance
“Music is a common language with many different dialects,” says composer/performer Edgar Meyer, who began studying bass at the age of five. Meyer has earned accolades from PBS, the Cannes Film Festival and the MacArthur Foundation (with a “genius” award). He has also received three Grammy Awards as a classical, bluegrass and crossover artist. Meyer claims the key to his success is collaboration with such artists as composer/ mandolin wunderkind Chris Thile of the Grammy-nominated Nickel Creek as well as the Punch Brothers. At 27, Thile is one of the most inventive musicians of his generation, having changed the mandolin forever and creating a new level of excellence in bluegrass music.
Artist Biography
Prominently established as a unique and masterful instrumentalist, Edgar Meyer has an active career as both a performer and a composer. Hailed by the New Yorker as “...the most remarkable virtuoso in the relatively unchronicled history of his instrument,” Mr. Meyer's unparalleled technique and musicianship in combination with his gift for composition have brought him to the fore, where he is appreciated by a vast, varied audience. His uniqueness in the field was recognized by a MacArthur Award in 2002.
Mr. Meyer's most recent album is a self-titled solo recording on which he wrote and played all of the pieces on instruments including piano, guitar, mandolin, dobro, banjo, gamba, and double bass. As a solo classical bassist, Mr. Meyer has released a concerto album with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra featuring Bottesini's Gran Duo with Joshua Bell; Meyer's Double Concerto for Bass and Cello with Yo-Yo Ma; Bottesini's Bass Concerto No. 2 and Meyer's Concerto in D for Bass. Just prior to that, he released an album with three of Bach's Unaccompanied Suites for Cello. In the fall of 2007, Sony/BMG honored his remarkable artistry with a compilation disc featuring highlights of his nine award-winning recordings on the label, and several of his recordings were featured in The War, a recent documentary by renowned filmmaker Ken Burns.
As a composer, Mr. Meyer has carved out a remarkable and unique niche in the musical world. In the 2006-2007 season, he premiered a triple concerto for double bass, banjo, and tabla (written and performed with Bela Fleck and Zakir Hussain) for the opening of the Schermerhorn Symphony Center in Nashville, as well as a piece for double bass and piano performed with Emanuel Ax in New York, Washington DC, and Nashville. During the 2005-2006 season, he premiered the revised version of his Double Bass Concerto No. 2 with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and a piece for violin and piano performed by Joshua Bell at the Montalvo Arts Center and New York's Lincoln Center. Mr. Meyer premiered his Double Bass Concerto No. 1 in 1993 with Edo de Waart and the Minnesota Orchestra, and in 1995, he premiered his Quintet for Bass and String Quartet in collaboration with the Emerson String Quartet, which was later recorded on the Deutsche Grammophon label. Also, in 1995, he premiered his Double Concerto for Bass and Cello, in collaboration with Carter Brey, cello and Jeffrey Kahane conducting the San Luis Obispo Mozart Festival Orchestra. Mr. Meyer has also performed with the Boston Symphony under Seiji Ozawa, featuring the premiere of one of his own works, the Meyer Double Concerto for Bass and Cello with Yo-Yo Ma. In October 1999, Mr. Meyer's violin concerto written for violinist Hilary Hahn was premiered and recorded by Ms. Hahn with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra led by Hugh Wolff.
Fruitful collaborations are also an important part of Mr. Meyer's work. In the 2007-08 season, he tours with longtime colleagues Mike Marshall (as a duo) and Sam Bush and Jerry Douglas (as a trio), as well as traveling to India for performances with Bela Fleck and Zakir Hussain. In the 2006-07 season, he toured for a second time with mandolin virtuoso Chris Thile, with whom he will release an album in 2008. His inventive performing and recording projects as a duo with Béla Fleck; a quartet with Joshua Bell, Sam Bush and Mike Marshall; a trio with Béla Fleck and Mike Marshall; and a trio with Yo-Yo Ma and Mark O'Connor have been widely acclaimed. Appalachia Waltz, recorded with Mr. Ma and Mr. O'Connor, soared to the top of the charts and remained there for 16 weeks. Appalachia Waltz toured extensively in the U.S., and the trio was featured both on the David Letterman Show and the televised 1997 Inaugural Gala. Appalachian Journey, the Grammy®-winning follow-up to Appalachia Waltz, was released in March 2000.
Mr. Meyer also works with pianist Amy Dorfman, his longtime pianist for solo recitals, featuring both classical repertoire and his own compositions. Mr. Meyer's vast musical interests have also led him to be a widely sought-after guest bass player for an assortment of recording artists including Garth Brooks, Bruce Cockburn, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Hank Williams Jr., Emmylou Harris, James Taylor, Lyle Lovett, T-Bone Burnett, Reba McIntyre, the Indigo Girls, Travis Tritt and the Chieftains.
Mr. Meyer began studying bass at the age of five under the instruction of his father, and continued further to study with Stuart Sankey. He is the winner of numerous awards. In addition to multiple Grammies and the MacArthur Award, he is the only bassist to receive the Avery Fisher Career Grant and the Avery Fisher Prize.
A frequent guest at music festivals, Mr. Meyer has appeared as performer and composer at Aspen, Tanglewood, Caramoor, Chamber Music Northwest, and Marlboro. At the Sante Fe Chamber Music Festival, he was a regular guest from 1985-1993, and composed six works for the festival during that time. In 1994, Mr. Meyer joined the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and continues to perform regularly with the ensemble. Currently, he is also Visiting Professor of Double Bass at the Royal Academy of Music and at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.
Acclaimed as one of the most interesting and inventive musicians of his generation, 27-year-old phenom Chris Thile has changed the mandolin forever, elevating it from its origins as a relatively simple folk and bluegrass instrument to the sophistication and brilliance of the finest jazz improvisation and classical performance. Since his first recording at the age of 12, he has effortlessly won over fellow musicians and critics alike while attracting an immensely devoted fan base throughout the world.
Mr. Thile’s newest album, How to Grow a Woman from the Ground, was released in September 2006 to great critical acclaim and received a Grammy® Award nomination for Best Country Instrumental Performance for the song The Eleventh Reel. The band that he formed for the album, now called Punch Brothers, is comprised of young and blazingly talented musicians Gabe Witcher on fiddle, Noam Pikelny on banjo, Chris Eldridge on guitar, and Greg Garrison on bass. They have been playing sold-out performances throughout the US and completing work on The Blind Leaving the Blind, a long-form, four-movement chamber suite composed by Mr. Thile. The piece received its premiere at Carnegie’s Zankel Hall in March 2007 and will be released as a recording in early 2008 on Nonesuch Records.
For more than 15 years, Mr. Thile has played with Sean and Sara Watkins in the wildly popular band Nickel Creek, with whom he released three albums for a combined 2 million records sold and toured the world playing in packed halls and arenas. He has also released four solo albums, on which he conquered a dizzying range of instruments, songwriting challenges and musical styles.
Mr. Thile has performed and recorded extensively as a duo with double bass virtuoso Edgar Meyer (with whom he will release an album in 2008) and with fellow eminent mandolinist Mike Marshall, and has plans for a project with celebrated violinist Hilary Hahn. In addition, he has collaborated with a pantheon of bluegrass innovators including Bela Fleck, Dolly Parton, the Dixie Chicks, Jerry Douglas, and Sam Bush. In April 2007, Mr. Meyer and pianist Emanuel Ax performed a piece for double bass and piano that they commissioned from Mr. Thile for a tour including Zankel Hall in New York, the Kennedy Center in Washington DC, and the new Schermerhorn Symphony Center in Nashville.
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 most recently he won the 2007 BBC Radio 2 Folk Award for Musician of the Year.
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