Chris Thile, Mandolin & Edgar Meyer, Bass

At Chris Thile’s sold-out solo show last season on our series, he coined the term “stouring,” telling the audience that Richardson Auditorium was so incredible that he would rather stay put and have all of his tour audiences come to him. This year he’s back with bassist Edgar Meyer. No musician has done more to bridge the 19th century’s central European classical music tradition with the sounds of Appalachia today—think Blue Danube to Bluegrass—than composer and double bass magician Edgar Meyer. Bassist on the Grammy-winning Appalachia Waltz and The Goat Rodeo Sessions (featuring Chris Thile), he has said that pleasing himself as a bass player is “a horrendous undertaking.” Meyer has composed works for cellist Yo-Yo Ma, violinists Joshua Bell and Hilary Hahn, the Emerson Quartet, and Grammy-winning mandolinist Thile, whose recent recital at Carnegie Hall (warm-up to his triumphant Princeton debut) was called “breathtaking,” “revelatory,” “poignant” and “exuberant” by The New York Times. “Edgar is one of the biggest influences on my musical life, and now I’m in a duo with him and writing songs with him,” says Thile. “This was my dream.” The enthusiasm is mutual. “I can’t think of another musician with his combination of abilities,” said Meyer. “When Chris came on the scene, it was a wonderful feeling that the next generation was going to take things well beyond what we had imagined. Mandolin and bass can be an excellent instrumentation. I like the way they interact dynamically and the way they contrast each other and don’t get in each other’s space.” You be sure to get in their space at Richardson Auditorium. These two MacArthur Geniuses will cross traditional boundaries in a diverse program of largely original music.