CONCERT

Carnegie Hall
Chris Thile, Nickel Creek, Punch Brothers

"For the first time, Nickel Creek and Punch Brothers appear on the same bill for an evening that features the two main branches of Chris Thile’s musical family tree."

Nickel Creek

"Nickel Creek is the Grammy Award–winning roots-music trio of violinist Sara Watkins, mandolinist Chris Thile, and guitarist Sean Watkins. After the close of its Farewell (For Now) tour in 2007, which culminated at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, Nickel Creek was not actually contemplating a breakup, as many in its large fan-base feared. The still startlingly young band-mates simply needed some time to grow up—musically and personally—away from the glare of the spotlight they’d shared since they were kids. Sara and Chris were merely eight years old when they and 12-year-old Sean played their first gig as Nickel Creek at a San Diego pizza parlor, having been brought together by a mutual music teacher. Chris’s dad played bass. After 10 years of work on the contemporary bluegrass circuit, the prodigious trio landed a deal with the independent Sugar Hill Records, championed by violinist Alison Krauss, who would produce Nickel Creek’s first two Sugar Hill releases, its self-titled 2000 debut, and the 2002 follow-up This Side, which garnered a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album.

Nickel Creek’s third studio album, 2005’s Why Should the Fire Die?, was a more ambitious effort, prefiguring the expansive solo work to come individually from these musicians. It was produced in part by Eric Valentine, whose credits in punk, alt rock, and pop made him the least likely—but somehow just right—candidate for the job. In 2014, Nickel Creek released its most recent album, A Dotted Line, again with Valentine, and embarked on a sold-out 25th anniversary tour."

Punch Brothers

"Punch Brothers are the quintet of mandolinist Chris Thile, guitarist Chris Eldridge, bassist Paul Kowert, banjoist Noam Pikelny, and violinist Gabe Witcher. Says The Washington Post, “With enthusiasm and experimentation, Punch Brothers take bluegrass to its next evolutionary stage, drawing equal inspiration from the brain and the heart.” The quintet’s latest album, All Ashore, was released in July 2018 on Nonesuch Records and won the 2019 Grammy Award for Best Folk Album. The Independent called All Ashore “an album of rich instrumentation and understated beauty that reveals deeper nuances on each and every listen.”

As Thile says, the album is “a meditation on committed relationships in the present day, particularly in the present climate.” He continues, “We were hoping to create something that would be convincing as a complete thought—in this case as a nine-movement, or nine-piece, thought—though it’s rangy in what it’s talking about, and in the characters who are doing the talking …”

Punch Brothers returned to the same room at United Recording Studios (formerly Ocean Way) in Hollywood, where they had recorded both The Phosphorescent Blues and their 2010 Jon Brion–produced Antifogmatic. Thile says they felt they had “established a rapport” with the space; the same “level of trust and love that breeds confidence” also led them to produce the album themselves for the first time."