CHRIS THILE WITH THE MSO

Saturday, March 15, 2025 at 7:30 pm

ALLEN-BRADLEY HALL

Ryan Tani, conductor

Chris Thile, mandolin and vocals

Claire Coffee, director

Ilana Setapen, violin

Alex Sopp, soprano

Members of the Milwaukee Symphony Chorus

ARTURO MÁRQUEZ

Danzón No. 2

BÉLA BARTÓK

Romanian Folk Dances, Sz. 68, BB 76

I.Joc cu bâtă

II.Brâul

III.Pe loc

IV.Buciumeana

V.Poarga românească

VI.Mărunţel

VII.Mărunţel

JOHANNES BRAHMS/orch. Albert Parlow

Hungarian Dance No. 5 in G minor, WoO 1

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH

Concerto in D minor for Two Violins and String Orchestra, BWV 1043

III.Allegro

Chris Thile, mandolin

Ilana Setapen, violin

CAROLINE SHAW And So

SAMUEL BARBER

Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, Opus 14

III.Presto in moto perpetuo

Chris Thile, mandolin

INTERMISSION

CHRIS THILE

ATTENTION! (a narrative song cycle for extroverted mandolinist and orchestra)

I.Attention

II.Lord Starbucks

III. The Rooftop

IV.Carrie Freaking Fisher

Chris Thile, mandolin and vocals

Claire Coffee, director

Alex Sopp, soprano

Members of the Milwaukee Symphony Chorus

PUNCH BROTHERS/arr. Gabriel Kahane

Julep

The length of this concert is approximately 2 hours. All programs are subject to change.

Independent Living

. Full-sized pool and whirlpool

. State-of-the-art tness center

. Curated activities including social, recreational, and educational

. Located only 40 minutes north of Milwaukee in beautiful Washington County

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Within minutes of vibrant downtown West Bend featuring an award-winning farmer’s market, ne dining, shopping, cultural events, art museum, and gol ng

. 1,000 feet of pristine Big Cedar Lake frontage—pontoon boat rides, paddle boat, kayak launch, swimming, and shing

Guest Artist Biographies

CHRIS THILE

Acclaimed Grammy Award-winning mandolinist, singer, songwriter, composer, and MacArthur Fellow recipient of the prestigious “Genius Grant”, Chris Thile is a multifaceted musical talent, described by The Guardian as “that rare being: an all-round musician,” and hailed by NPR as a “genre-defying musical genius.” Thile is a founding member of the highly influential string bands Punch Brothers and Nickel Creek and has collaborated with countless luminaries from Yo-Yo Ma to Fiona Apple to Brad Mehldau. For four years, Thile hosted public radio favorite Live from Here with Chris Thile (formerly known as A Prairie Home Companion). With his broad outlook, Thile creates a distinctly American canon and a new musical aesthetic for performers and audiences alike, giving the listener “one joyous arc, with the linear melody and vertical harmony blurring into a single web of gossamer beauty” (New York Times).

Over the last year, Thile has been touring with Nickel Creek in support of the critically acclaimed 2023 release Celebrants and captivating audiences with a playfully ambitious biographical composition entitled ATTENTION! (a narrative song cycle for extroverted mandolinist and orchestra). Additionally, he has been focused on the production of a new musical variety show, The Energy Curfew Music Hour. Created with Claire Coffee and featuring Punch Brothers, season one is available on Audible and all podcasting platforms. Most recently, Chris debuted a new one-man show, The Manhattan Variations, in NYC’s Little Island about finding oneself in a little cocktail bar on the Lower East Side.

Program notes by Chris Thile

CHRIS THILE

Born 20 February 1981; Oceanside, California

ATTENTION! (a narrative song cycle for extroverted mandolinist and orchestra)

Composed: 2023

First performance: 29 June 2023; Eric Jacobsen, conductor; Chris Thile, vocalist and mandolin; The Knights Last MSO performance: MSO Premiere

Instrumentation: 2 flutes (2nd doubling on piccolo); 2 oboes (2nd doubling on English horn); 2 clarinets; 2 bassoons; 2 horns; 2 trumpets; trombone; timpani; percussion (drum set); strings

Approximate duration: 40 minutes

I adore orchestras. Whether scaled up for grandeur, or down for intimacy, nothing makes me prouder to be human than hearing a stage full of highly skilled orchestral musicians practicing their craft together. It’s magic, and it’s something I’ve been desperate to participate in since the early aughts, when a hero of mine, Edgar Meyer, walked me through the score of a violin concerto he wrote for another hero of mine, Hilary Hahn. In the late aughts I wrote a mandolin concerto, but after performing it quite a bit for a year or so with some truly lovely orchestras, I realized that it was basically the musical equivalent of fan fiction (like I’m tempted to rename it “Bartók meets Adés for coffee at Edgar’s”). SO, I went back to admiring orchestral music from afar, even as I continued to monitor my inner ear for something that might justify another attempt. A year or two ago, a tantalizing text from my pal, Eric Jacobsen (“Thile, whatever you wanna do with orchestra, we can make it happen!”) prompted more pro-active monitoring and I started hearing bits of what would eventually become ATTENTION! I was confused at first, ‘cause these little aural visions included not just mandolin and orchestra, but singing AND talking as well. Whoa, ok...FUN. Further dreaming led to the conviction that there should be an actual STORY, not just loosely related vignettes (which has pretty much been my MO on long form pieces with vocals up to this point). But WHAT story? I’ve always loved writing songs based on short stories, so I started there, widened the search to essays, then read a bunch of plays, but every time I got excited about something, a nagging little voice (probably remembering my last orchestral piece) would say “Yeah, but why would YOU be the one to musicalize this story?” Ugh. Fair. Ok, fine then: what is a story I like to tell about something that happened to me that my friends seem to like hearing? Ah HA! THIS ONE, hands down, no contest. If you’ve ever had a couple rounds with me at a good cocktail bar, chances are I’ve trotted it out, and the thought of turning it into a piece of orchestral music got my inner ear cranking like never before. It’s a ridiculous story, but it’s 100% true, and the more I’ve worked on the telling of it, the more aware I’ve become of what a profound impact the whole experience had on me as a person who loves to make things and show them to other people.

You can find the lyrics at christhile.com/attention, but I recommend only using it when my diction isn’t up to snuff (I’m working on it, swear to God!). Now, if you’ll just give me your attention...

2024.25 SEASON

KEN-DAVID MASUR

Music Director

Polly and Bill Van Dyke

Music Director Chair

EDO DE WAART

Music Director Laureate

BYRON STRIPLING

Principal Pops Conductor

Stein Family Foundation Principal Pops

Conductor Chair

RYAN TANI

Assistant Conductor

CHERYL FRAZES HILL

Chorus Director

Margaret Hawkins Chorus Director Chair

TIMOTHY J. BENSON

Assistant Chorus Director

FIRST VIOLINS

Jinwoo Lee, Concertmaster, Charles and Marie Caestecker Concertmaster Chair

Ilana Setapen, First Associate Concertmaster, Thora M. Vervoren First Associate Concertmaster Chair

Jeanyi Kim, Associate Concertmaster

Alexander Ayers

Autumn Chodorowski

Yuka Kadota

Sheena Lan**

Elliot Lee**

Dylana Leung

Kyung Ah Oh

Lijia Phang

Yuanhui Fiona Zheng

SECOND VIOLINS

Jennifer Startt, Principal, Andrea and Woodrow Leung Second Violin Chair

Ji-Yeon Lee, Assistant Principal (2nd chair)

John Bian, Assistant Principal (3rd chair)*

Hyewon Kim, Acting Assistant Principal (3rd chair)

Glenn Asch

Lisa Johnson Fuller

Clay Hancock

Paul Hauer

Janis Sakai**

Mary Terranova

VIOLAS

Robert Levine, Principal, Richard O. and Judith A. Wagner Family Assistant Principal (2nd chair), Friends of Janet F. Ruggeri Viola Chair

Samantha Rodriguez, Assistant Principal (3rd chair)

Elizabeth Breslin

Georgi Dimitrov

Alejandro Duque

Nathan Hackett

Erin H. Pipal

CELLOS

Susan Babini, Principal, Dorothea C. Mayer Cello Chair

Shinae Ra, Assistant Principal (2nd chair)

Scott Tisdel, Associate Principal Emeritus

Madeleine Kabat

Peter Szczepanek

Peter J. Thomas

Adrien Zitoun

BASSES

Principal, Donald B. Abert Bass Chair

Andrew Raciti, Acting Principal

Nash Tomey, Acting Assistant Principal (2nd chair)

Brittany Conrad

Omar Haffar**

Paris Myers

HARP

Julia Coronelli, Principal, Walter Schroeder Harp Chair

FLUTES

Sonora Slocum, Principal, Margaret and Roy Butter Flute Chair

Heather Zinninger, Assistant Principal

Jennifer Bouton Schaub

PICCOLO

Jennifer Bouton Schaub

OBOES

Katherine Young Steele, Principal, Milwaukee Symphony League Oboe Chair

Kevin Pearl, Assistant Principal

Margaret Butler

ENGLISH HORN

Margaret Butler, Philip and Beatrice Blank English Horn Chair in memoriam to John Martin

CLARINETS

Todd Levy, Principal, Franklyn Esenberg Clarinet Chair

Jay Shankar, Assistant Principal, Donald and Ruth P. Taylor Assistant Principal Clarinet Chair

Besnik Abrashi

E-FLAT CLARINET

Jay Shankar

BASS CLARINET

Besnik Abrashi

BASSOONS

Catherine Van Handel, Principal, Muriel C. and John D. Silbar Family Bassoon Chair

Rudi Heinrich, Assistant Principal

Beth W. Giacobassi

CONTRABASSOON

Beth W. Giacobassi

HORNS

Matthew Annin, Principal, Krause Family French Horn Chair

Krystof Pipal, Associate Principal

Dietrich Hemann, Andy Nunemaker

French Horn Chair

Darcy Hamlin

Scott Sanders

TRUMPETS

Matthew Ernst, Principal, Walter L. Robb Family Trumpet Chair

David Cohen, Associate Principal, Martin J. Krebs Associate Principal

Trumpet Chair

Tim McCarthy, Fred Fuller Trumpet Chair

TROMBONES

Megumi Kanda, Principal, Marjorie Tiefenthaler Trombone Chair

Kirk Ferguson, Assistant Principal

BASS TROMBONE

John Thevenet, Richard M. Kimball Bass Trombone Chair

TUBA

Robyn Black, Principal, John and Judith Simonitsch Tuba Chair

TIMPANI

Dean Borghesani, Principal

Chris Riggs, Assistant Principal

PERCUSSION

Robert Klieger, Principal

Chris Riggs

PIANO

Melitta S. Pick Endowed Piano Chair

PERSONNEL

Antonio Padilla Denis, Director of Orchestra Personnel

Paris Myers, Hiring Coordinator

LIBRARIANS

Paul Beck, Principal Librarian, James E. Van Ess Principal Librarian Chair

Matthew Geise, Assistant Librarian & Media Archivist

PRODUCTION

Tristan Wallace, Production Manager/ Live Audio

Lisa Sottile, Production Stage Manager

* Leave of Absence 2024.25 Season

** Acting member of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra 2024.25 Season