Chris Thile was in Denver, Colorado, this weekend giving two encore performances of his Mandolin Concerto, Ad astra per alas porci, with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra under Jeffrey Kahane, following Thursday's world premiere, described as "nothing short of astounding" by the Denver Post. The piece's next performance is this weekend in Portland, Oregon, with the Oregon Symphony, on a program that also features performances by bassist Edgar Meyer (Thile's collaborator on a 2008 Nonesuch release), tabla player Zakir Hussain, and banjo master Béla Fleck (a recent tour mate of Toumani Diabaté's), with a jam session set to follow the concert.

Following Saturday's show in Portland, Thile joins his fellow Punch Brothers—Chris Eldridge (guitar), Paul Kowert (bass), Noam Pikelny (banjo), and Gabe Witcher (fiddle)—for a three-week tour of the United States. The group’s next record, following last year's Punch, its Nonesuch debut, is scheduled for 2010. "The new album is the next step in the natural progression of Punch Brothers," reports Witcher, "from a group first assembled to render Thile’s composition, The Blind Leaving the Blind [as heard on Punch], to a collective compositional entity in its own right." He continues:

Whereas the co-written material on Punch was created almost as an afterthought or reaction to Blind, our goal now is to see what these five guys, having developed an extremely intimate musical rapport over the last four years, can achieve creatively together. The great majority of music for the new project is written by the five of us, and reflects the melding of our distinct but overlapping musical aesthetics in a way that would be unachievable by any one member individually.

On October 16, Punch Brothers will play a very special concert in the Stern Auditorium of Carnegie Hall as part of Carnegie's The Originals series. Please see below for other dates from their US tour. For more information and links to purchase tickets, visit nonesuch.com/on-tour.
    
SCHEDULED PUNCH BROTHERS CONCERTS