Chris Thile and Brad Mehldau were the guests on NPR's World Cafe. They spoke with host David Dye and performed three songs from their just-released debut duo album together: Bob Dylan's "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright," David Rawling and Gillian Welch's "Scarlet Town," and Elliott Smith's "Independence Day." "It is extraordinary," says host Dye of the new album. "Two players from different genres, bluegrass and jazz, further the thinking that genres are just not that important to improvisers." Find out what they had to say and hear the performances here.

Chris Thile & Brad Mehldau, the debut duo album from the Nonesuch labelmates, is out now. At the end of 2015, the longtime admirers of each other's work played a two-night stand at NYC's Bowery Ballroom (videos from which you can watch here) before going into the studio to record the double album. "This meeting of two masters of their respective realms is a spine-tingling triumph," raves a five-star Irish Times review. The Guardian gives the album four stars, saying: "Two very different musicians hit a remarkable rapport on this double album." The four-star BBC Music Magazine review says "the vivid dynamic really puts a bright face on this mix of original and old song covers from across the jazz, folk and country spectrum." 

Mandolinist/singer Chris Thile and pianist Brad Mehldau make their duo debut together with Chris Thile & Brad Mehldau, a mix of covers and original songs, out this Friday, January 27, 2017. Here, the label mates and longtime admirers of each other's work speak with writer Michael Hill about the project and how it came to be.

Chris Thile and Brad Mehldau will release their self-titled debut duo album on January 27. At the end of 2015, they played a two-night stand at Bowery Ballroom in NYC before going into the studio to record the album, a mix of original songs and covers, like Elliott Smith's "Independence Day." You can now watch a video of their Bowery Ballroom performance of the song here. The album track may be downloaded now with pre-orders of Chris Thile & Brad Mehldau, along with their take on "Scarlet Town," written by David Rawlings and Gillian Welch.

Chris Thile and Brad Mehldau were guests on CBS This Morning Saturday. They stopped gave a Saturday Sessions performance of three songs from their forthcoming debut duo album, Chris Thile & Brad Mehldau: Bob Dylan's "Don't Think Twice It's Alright," Elliott Smith's "Independence Day," and Thile and Mehldau's own "The Old Shade Tree." The selection reflects the mix of covers and original songs on the new double album, which is due January 27. You can watch the performances here.

Nonesuch labelmates mandolinist/singer Chris Thile and pianist Brad Mehldau played a two-night stand at NYC's Bowery Ballroom at the end of 2015 before going into the studio to record Chris Thile & Brad Mehldau, a mix of covers and original songs due January 27, 2017, on two CDs / LPs. The vinyl edition includes a bonus performance of Fiona Apple's "Fast As You Can." Pre-orders include an instant download of the album track "Scarlet Town," written by David Rawlings and Gillian Welch. You can watch a live performance of the song here.

Chris Thile, the new host of the public radio show A Prairie Home Companion and duo partner of label mate Brad Mehldau on a just-announced forthcoming album, was on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert last night. He sat in with Jon Batiste & Stay Human throughout the show and was accompanied by them in a performance of "My Oh My," a song from the 2015 Punch Brothers album The Phosphorescent Blues. You can watch that performance here. Also on the show were Eddie Redmayne, Alton Brown, and Bernie Sanders.

Chris Thile spoke with PBS NewsHour about his new role as host of A Prairie Home Companion. "I’m obsessed with the good things that people make to give to one another," Thile says. "This show is a place, has been one of America’s most consistent sources of good things for 40 years. And I feel like it’s imperative that it continue." Mike Olson of Lake Street Dive, which was a musical guest on Thile's first show as host, tells PBS: "The desire to have a vinyl record and the desire to listen to a variety show and these kinds of things goes beyond nostalgia. And that’s a very visceral experience. And there’s something I think directly transferable to a show like this." Watch the piece here.

Chris Thile was on NPR's quiz show Wait Wait ... Don't Tell Me! last weekend. He discussed his new role as host of A Prairie Home Companion, which begins October 15 with special guests Lake Street Dive and Jack White. Thile, a co-founder of the band Nickel Creek, also answers questions about the similarly named band Nickelback in the segment "Not My Job," which host Peter Sagal describes as "the game where people who are geniuses at what they do prove how good they can be doing something else entirely." You can hear how well Thile did here. 

Chris Thile, who will take over for Garrison Keillor as the new host of the beloved public radio program A Prairie Home Companion this fall, has announced a few of the musicians who will join him as the show's house band, along with pianist Rich Dworsky. Among them are two of Thile's fellow Punch Brothers: Chris Eldridge on guitar and Paul Kowert on bass. You can watch Thile give a snapshot of the house band in the video from the show here. Thile will host the new season of A Prairie Home Companion beginning on October 15.

Chris Thile launches a week-long US tour with banjoist Béla Fleck at the Holland Performing Arts Center in Omaha Tuesday. The tour continues with a stop at the Interlochen Center for the Arts in Michigan; two in upstate New York, at Smith Opera House in Geneva and Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival; and two concerts in California, at the Fox Theater in Oakland and the Theatre at the Ace Hotel in Los Angeles.

American Acoustic, a Chris Thile–curated festival at The Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, gets under way this evening and runs through Saturday. The performances feature collaborations between Thile and performers including Punch Brothers, Michael Daves, Edgar Meyer, and others. "One of the thesis statements of the week is going to be to look beyond genre and examine and celebrate the similarities between great instances of music making, rather than the differences," Thile tells the Washington Post.