Chris Thile

Thile is a MacArthur Fellow and Grammy Award-winning mandolinist, singer, songwriter, and according to The Guardian, 'that rare being: an all-round musician who can settle into any style, from bluegrass to classical.' 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). Most recently, Thile recorded?Laysongs, out on Nonesuch. The album is his first truly solo album: just Thile, his voice, and his mandolin, on new recordings of six original songs and three covers, all of which contextualise and banter with his ideas about spirituality. Recorded in a converted upstate New York church during the pandemic,?Laysongs’ centrepiece is the three-part ‘Salt (in the Wounds) of the Earth’, which was inspired by CS Lewis’?The Screwtape Letters.