Pianist and composer Brad Mehldau has announced four live performances of music from his 2025 GRAMMY-nominated album Ride into the Sun—a songbook record of music by the late singer, songwriter, and guitarist Elliott Smith—this summer: three in California in August—Balboa Theatre in San Diego on the 27th, The Orpheum Theatre in Los Angeles on the 28th, and Paramount Theatre in Oakland on the 29th—followed by the Groton Hill Music Center in Massachusetts on September 2. All four performances include singer/mandolinist Chris Thile, bassist John Davis, and drummer Matt Chamberlain, all of whom perform on the album, plus singer/guitarist Blake Mills and a chamber orchestra led by Dan Coleman, reprising his album role, here with USC Thornton Chamber Virtuosi in California and A Far Cry chamber orchestra in Massachusetts.

The ten Elliott Smith songs on Ride into the Sun are complemented by four Mehldau compositions inspired by him and interpretations of Big Star’s “Thirteen,” which Smith also covered, and “Sunday” by Nick Drake, whom Mehldau sees "in some ways as sort of Smith’s visionary grandfather.” You can get the album and hear it here.

Brad Mehldau spends this coming weekend at Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg for the sold-out Reflektor Brad Mehldau. He performs a solo program featuring his Fantasy for Piano, Fourteen Reveries, L.A. Pastorale, and April 2020 on Friday; returns to the Great Hall, joining hr-Bigband and its composer-in-residence and conductor Darcy James Argue on Saturday; and is joined by bassist Christian McBride for a duo set on Sunday.