Interview: Chris Thile
Over the last century or so, composers have been stretching the bounds of which solo instruments can be paired with an orchestra: There exist concerti for harmonica, bass drum, and ping-pong apparatus. But only one piece, Attention!, calls for “extroverted mandolinist.” For those with a knowledge of the bluegrass scene, it should come as little surprise that it was written by Chris Thile.
Since breaking into the music world with the trio Nickel Creek at age 8, Thile has been a gregarious ambassador for both his chosen instrument and creative storytelling. He’s pushed the possibilities of progressive bluegrass as the bandleader for Punch Brothers, recorded acclaimed mandolin versions of Johann Sebastian Bach’s violin compositions, and hosted radio programs including Live from Here (formerly known as A Prairie Home Companion) and The Energy Curfew Music Hour.
The mandolinist now brings his self-described “narrative song cycle” to Asheville on Saturday, May 10, for a performance with the Asheville Symphony Orchestra. The concert promises a fitting conclusion to the orchestra’s Amadeus Festival, which this year is dedicated to “The Art of Storytelling.”
Thile graciously responded to questions about the piece from Asheville Stages via voice memo as he prepared for his upcoming performance with the ASO. The conversation has been lightly edited for concision.
Daniel Walton: In the program for a Philadelphia Orchestra performance of Attention!, you mention your 2010 concerto for mandolin and orchestra, Ad astra per alia porci, calling it “the musical equivalent of fan fiction.” What exactly did you mean by that, and in what ways does your newer work reflect a more refined understanding of orchestral music?
Chris Thile: In 2010, I absolutely loved and admired orchestral music; I didn’t necessarily have a personal grasp of it. I had the materials that existed, and could sort of assemble them as I saw fit at the time. But I don’t really feel like it was part of my compositional voice. With Attention!, I found a personal reason to make orchestral music, in the service of telling this crazy story of meeting Carrie Fisher at a rooftop bar in San Diego in the mid-aughts.
DW: How did you approach the compositional process for this piece? To what extent did you write orchestral score parts on mandolin (a la Béla Fleck for The Imposter banjo concerto), versus writing on other instruments or in a digital program like Sibelius?
CT: More than on any particular instrument, you’re attempting to imagine the piece in your head so completely that you can start writing it down. Much of it is silent, just imagining the story that I want to tell. It’s a story that I have been telling, you know — when it gets to the part of the night when you’re telling your craziest stories, this is the one I trot out. It was just very easy to imagine the musicalized version of it, including orchestra.
The mandolin is sort of an extension of my imagination at this point, so when I’m drumming up certain murkier sections of the music that I don’t hear quite as clearly in my head, I’ll go poking around on the mandolin, or I’ll go for a long walk humming to myself. But in terms of specific parts, you’re mostly just trying to imagine things so clearly that you can write them down, as opposed to coming up with an oboe part on the mandolin or something like that.
DW: You’ve now been playing Attention! for close to two years since its debut at Tanglewood in 2023, with about 20 performances under your belt. In what ways has your approach to the work evolved over that time?
CT: I have gotten to a place where the technical aspects of performing the piece aren’t so daunting. At the premiere, I was hanging on for dear life. Now I can really focus on communicating the story to the people who come, and my heart rate isn’t quite as high. I can actually focus on who’s here, and how I can tell them this story, and just play and sing — more for the love of it than the fear of it.
DW: Both the classical and bluegrass traditions, at least in modern times, have been so rooted in the value of interpretation: the importance of resurfacing past works with individual perspective or spin. Given how personal the story you tell through Attention! is, do you ever imagine someone else performing it in the future?
CT: I think it’s unlikely. But I hope that the story is fun enough to where you wouldn’t have to hear it told by the person whose story it is. I could imagine maybe a vocalist and a mandolinist, being as separate people, doing it. Maybe that would help defuse how specific to me the story is, if it were taken on by multiple people.
I do know that any time any musician plays anything that I’ve written, it feels amazing. I fully cop to the fact that Attention! is a pretty personalized story, but hopefully it tackles some universal issues.
DW: This Asheville performance is the finale of the Asheville Amadeus Festival, established in 2015 to honor the legacy of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. I love your many Bach interpretations, and I know you performed a Bartók piece on your recent solo album, Laysongs, but I haven’t seen much Mozart from you. Can you reflect on your relationship with Mozart’s music and why it does or does not resonate with you as an interpreter?
CT: I love Mozart, and I have played some Mozart: Punch Brothers arranged the finale of Mozart’s 14th string quartet for itself, and that was fun. But interestingly, the two composers you trot out there — Bach and Bartók — both wrote solo violin pieces. That’s pretty easy to realize by myself; Mozart did not write any solo violin pieces.
I do love his six Haydn string quartets, particularly the 19th string quartet, the sixth and final of the string quartets that he dedicated to [Joseph] Haydn. It’s nicknamed the “Dissonant” quartet, and that opening movement is just stunning. I love the “Jupiter” symphony, of course, and the operas are so cool, funny, perfect.
DW: Much of your work feels like it approaches acoustic music through memories of an electric era — I’m thinking of the Punch Brothers “Reptilia” cover as my ur-example. Your recently launched show, The Energy Curfew Music Hour, brings out that theme of acoustic vs. electric explicitly: It’s like you’re presenting a path for the evolution of music in a (very possible) near-future world where we can’t count on electric instruments or computer-driven innovation. Is it fair to say that’s a goal of your overall musical project?
CT: I don’t think so. The Energy Curfew Music Hour frame is sort of a cheeky nod to my own musical proclivities. I’m just better at making acoustic music than electric music; it’s the textural palette that I understand the best.
I think our times are very electric, musically speaking — particularly how much music is made on computers these days. If I’m a human being who loves music and has their ears open, then I’m going to be hearing a lot of electric or electronic music, and I’ll be reacting to it, as any human being would. But I also am constantly reacting to acoustic music — for instance, music that would traditionally be defined as classical. I think it’s just like, “Here’s the music in the world, and I’m reacting to it.”
I think my voice is largely an acoustic music voice, so as I react to it, it comes out acoustically. I wouldn’t read any more into it than that. I do think it’s possible that, at some point, we’ll be obliged to ration our energy usage, and one nice aspect of acoustic instruments is that they don’t require energy other than our own human energy. So, you know, bonus!
DW: Is there anything I haven’t asked about that you’d like to shout out or plug?
CT: I’m particularly excited about being in Asheville. This is the first time I’ve been in Asheville since you all had those crazy floods, and I’ve been thinking a lot about you guys. The music that I grew up with has a lot of deep roots in that area, so to perform a piece that owes a lot to those roots in that area — I’m already feeling the feels that I get to do it. I can’t wait to get there and play with and for y’all.
IF YOU GO
Who: Chris Thile with the Asheville Symphony Orchestra
When: Saturday, May 10, 7 p.m.
Where: Thomas Wolfe Auditorium, 87 Haywood St., AshevilleSymphony.org
Tickets: $41.10-$101.75
(Photo courtesy of Red Light Management)
