This Memorial Day weekend, Chris Thile hosts Live From Here from St. Louis with guests Gabriel Kahane, Rachael Price … Rhiannon Giddens continues Boston Pops residency performances … Brad Mehldau Trio plays South Korea … Gaby Moreno tours Texas with David Gray … Yola takes Walk Through Fire tour to Milan, Nottingham …
This Memorial Day long weekend in the United States, Chris Thile marks the unofficial launch of summer hosting his public radio show, Live From Here, from Powell Symphony Hall in St. Louis on Saturday, with special guests Anaïs Mitchell, the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra led by Gemma New, Gabriel Kahane, Lake Street Dive’s Rachael Price, and comedian Ian Edwards. Folks in the US can tune in on their favorite public radio station this weekend, and fans here and around the world can watch live online at livefromhere.org starting at 4:45 PM CT.
Thile and his fellow Punch Brothers released their Grammy Award–winning new album, All Ashore, last year on Nonesuch; the Boston Globe says it's “a deeply meaningful and downright gorgeous record.” Kahane released his Nonesuch debut album, Book of Travelers, last year as well, earning great critical acclaim, with the San Francisco Chronicle calling it “extraordinary … vivid and wholly original.” Lake Street Dive’s own 2018 album, Free Yourself Up, is “a confident collection of songs that reflects the quartet’s nearly decade-and-a-half of music making," says WFUV.
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Rhiannon Giddens, who made her Boston Pops debut during the 2018 Boston Pops Fireworks Spectacular, returned for a Pops residency titled Redefining American Music. For the first two evenings, this past Wednesday and Thursday, she joined the Pops and conductor Keith Lockhart to perform music from her own albums, fusing influences from roots, jazz, blues, country, gospel, and Celtic music. Tonight and Saturday, Giddens curates a program spotlighting overlooked African American composers, joined by vocalist Darius de Haas and pianist Lara Downes to perform works by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Billy Strayhorn, Eubie Blake, Florence Price, and Hazel Scott. She spoke with the Boston Globe ahead of the residency for an interview you can read at bostonglobe.com.
Giddens, who has been nominated for the Americana Honors & Awards Artist of the Year, released her new album, there is no Other, recorded with Italian multi-instrumentalist Francesco Turrisi, earlier this month. "This is acoustic roots music at its most glorious," exclaims Uncut, "and Giddens is fast becoming the genre’s brightest star in the firmament."
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The Brad Mehldau Trio—Larry Grenadier on bass and Jeff Ballard on drums—begins a tour of Asia this weekend, performing at Olympic Park in Seoul, South Korea, on Sunday, as part of Seoul Jazz Festival. The tour continues with dates in Hong Kong and Japan.
Brad Mehldau’s new album, Finding Gabriel, is out now. The album “feels both impeccably crafted and wildly out on a limb," says NPR, "rooted in both breath and spirit, and a force that moves in mysterious ways.”
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Gaby Moreno begins a month-long North American tour as special guest of David Gray, in Texas this weekend. They perform at Revention Music Center in Houston tonight, give a sold-out show at Austin City Limits Live at The Moody Theater in Austin on Saturday, and head to The Theatre at Grand Prairie in Grand Prairie on Sunday.
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Yola continues her European tour, featuring music from her debut solo album, Walk Through Fire, at Volvo Studio in Milan, Italy, as part of D della Repubblica’s Incontri di Musica festival tonight, before returning to the UK for a show The Bodega in Nottingham on Monday. She is up for two Americana Honors & Awards: Emerging Act of the Year and Album of the Year for Walk Through Fire, her Dan Auerbach-produced debut.
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