Nonesuch Records labelmates mandolinist/singer Chris Thile and pianist Brad Mehldau embark on a nine-city duo tour, beginning at New York City’s Bowery Ballroom tonight and includes stops in Durham, College Park, Great Barrington, Boston, Knoxville, Indianapolis, Chicago, and Austin. Their repertoire includes classical transcriptions, pop covers, and original songs. See below for all of the currently scheduled duo tour dates; for additional details and ticket links, visit nonesuch.com/on-tour.

The musicians, who are longtime admirers of each other’s work, performed together in September 2011 as part of Mehldau’s residency at London’s Wigmore Hall. The Guardian said of that performance, “Mehldau struck up his signature rocking chord vamp over which lightly struck motifs swell to sensuous extended melodies. Thile kept cajoling him with percussive snaps, flying runs, and chords strummed fast enough to sound as seamless as a purring strings section, inducing Mehldau…to bat back the playful provocation with stinging rejoinders.”

MacArthur Fellow Chris Thile is the founding member of Punch Brothers, which a Boston Globe reviewer recently called “the tightest, most impressive live band I have ever seen.” Their three Nonesuch releases are Punch, Antifogmatic, and Who’s Feeling Young Now?. Thile’s other Nonesuch releases include a duet album of traditional bluegrass songs with guitarist Michael Daves entitled Sleep with One Eye Open (the two have a number of tour dates together this May) and an album with one of his mentors, the bassist Edgar Meyer. Thile also recently collaborated with Yo-Yo Ma for the double Grammy Award-winning album The Goat Rodeo Sessions. As a soloist he has released four albums, as well as performing extensively as a duo with Meyer and with fellow eminent mandolinist Mike Marshall. In addition to his 15 years as a member of the Grammy Award-winning, multi-platinum selling Nickel Creek, he has also collaborated with a pantheon of bluegrass innovators including Bela Fleck, Dolly Parton, Jerry Douglas, and Sam Bush. Nonesuch releases his recording of solo Bach violin works this summer.

Brad Mehldau played in a number of different combos—including a stint in labelmate Joshua Redman’s quartet—before becoming a bandleader himself. His trio, which tours the world extensively, made eight acclaimed recordings for Warner Bros., including five Art of the Trio albums; Nonesuch released as a boxed set of the albums in 2011. The pianist’s eight years with Nonesuch have been equally productive, beginning with the solo disc Live in Tokyo and including five trio records—Day Is Done, House on Hill, Live, Ode, and Where Do You Start—as well as a collaboration with soprano Renée Fleming, Love Sublime; a chamber ensemble album, Highway Rider; two collaborations with labelmate Pat Metheny, Metheny Mehldau and Quartet, the latter of which also includes Brad Mehldau Trio members drummer Jeff Ballard and bassist Larry Grenadier; the live solo CD/DVD Live in Marciac; and a collaboration with composer/pianist Kevin Hays and composer/arranger Patrick Zimmerli, Modern Music. He also produced and performs on Walking Shadows, the forthcoming Nonesuch release from Redman. Mehldau has performed around the world at a steady pace since the mid-1990s, with his trio and as a solo pianist, and he also has worked with a number of great musicians, including Charlie Haden, Lee Konitz, Michael Brecker, Wayne Shorter, John Scofield, Charles Lloyd, Peter Bernstein, Kurt Rosenwinkel, and Mark Turner. In addition to the concerts with Thile, he has also been performing in duets with Kevin Hays and with drummer Mark Guiliana—as “Mehliana”—this year.

BRAD MEHLDAU & CHRIS THILE ON TOUR