Chris Thile's Bach: Sonatas and Partitas, Vol. 2—on which he performs Bach's Partita No. 2 in D minor, BWV 1004; Sonata No. 3 in C major, BWV 1005; and Partita No. 3 in E major, BWV 1006—is out now. For his second recording of Bach Violin Sonatas and Partitas, 12 years after the first volume, the mandolin virtuoso opted for a more personal approach, allowing himself to take liberties with the scores, which he recorded in multiple, somewhat untraditional, locations of personal significance. Nonesuch Store orders include an autographed print while they last. Thile kicks off his European tour tonight and resumes his US tour in January.
Copy
Mandolin virtuoso Chris Thile’s Bach: Sonatas and Partitas, Vol. 2 is out now on Nonesuch Records. The two-LP album comprises Partita No. 2 in D minor, BWV 1004; Sonata No. 3 in C major, BWV 1005; and Partita No. 3 in E major, BWV 1006. You can find it everywhere here, including in the Chris Thile Store and the Nonesuch Store, where orders include a print autographed by Thile while they last.
For his second recording of Bach Violin Sonatas and Partitas, twelve years after the first volume, Chris Thile opted for a more personal approach to the revered master composer’s works. This time, he allowed himself to take liberties with the scores, which he recorded in multiple, somewhat untraditional, locations of personal significance: Reservoir Studios and Tompkins Square Park in New York City; Farrell Recital Hall at Murray State University in Murray, KY; and Blackberry Farm in Walland, TN. Also out today is a video of Thile performing Sonata No. 3 in C major, BWV 1005: III. Largo, live at Yallarhammer Pavilion on Blackberry Farm in Walland, Tennessee. You can watch the video, directed by Matthew Edginton, here:
Thile will perform works by Bach, along with other material, during an extensive international solo US tour this fall through spring 2026. For details and tickets, visit nonesuch.com/on-tour.
Thile says in his liner note, “Volume 1, which contained the first three of the Six Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin, came out in 2013, and though I’m still proud of it, I can hear that I spent most of its development and execution worrying about whether Bach would like it ... not the kind of concern I usually harbor when making music, original or otherwise.
“The process of becoming a person who plays Bach is extraordinarily rewarding. My mentor, Edgar Meyer, has shown me and a whole lot of us that. And we’ll always be in the middle of that process,” he continues. “You practice Bach, like you practice yoga. Because it makes your life better. Because it makes the world around you seem like a better, happier place. Because communing with something THAT beautiful, made by a human being, continuing to be made and enjoyed by so many human beings, makes you proud to be human.
“And so you practice it. As often as you can, everywhere you go. Your living room. Hotel room. Onstage before the rest of the band shows up for soundcheck. In an empty corner of an airport after a cancelled flight ... the reason this record exists is that I love practicing Bach, and I wanted to try and share how that ongoing process feels and sounds to me,” Thile concludes. “Would he like it? Though I was tempted to capitalize ‘he’ just now, I’m trying not to care. Do I like it? Yes.”
Thile’s other Nonesuch releases include a duo album with guitarist Michael Daves, two records with bassist Edgar Meyer (one of which won a Grammy), a Bach album with Yo-Yo Ma and Meyer, a duet album with jazz pianist Brad Mehldau, and the T Bone Burnett–produced soundtrack to the Coen brothers’ Inside Llewyn Davis. He was featured on Brad Mehldau’s Elliott Smith songbook album, Ride into the Sun, released this past August.
As a soloist, Thile has released seven previous albums—most recently Laysongs, an album featuring six original songs and three covers, all of which contextualize and banter with his ideas about spirituality. He spent his formative years as a member of the Grammy Award–winning, multi-platinum selling band Nickel Creek, which reunited in 2014 for its highest-charting album to date, A Dotted Line, on Nonesuch. Nickel Creek subsequently released Celebrants in 2023. For four years, Thile hosted public radio favorite Live from Here with Chris Thile (formerly known as A Prairie Home Companion).
Thile has been performing his playfully ambitious biographical composition ATTENTION! (a narrative song cycle for extroverted mandolinist and orchestra) around the US since 2023. It tells the true story of a young Thile meeting Carrie Fisher at a rooftop bar in San Diego, transforming that moment into a larger meditation on ambition, identity, and the art of performance. 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. Season two is out now.
Chris Thile’s 'Bach: Sonatas and Partitas, Vol. 2' Out Now on Nonesuch
Mandolin virtuoso Chris Thile’s Bach: Sonatas and Partitas, Vol. 2 is out now on Nonesuch Records. The two-LP album comprises Partita No. 2 in D minor, BWV 1004; Sonata No. 3 in C major, BWV 1005; and Partita No. 3 in E major, BWV 1006. You can find it everywhere here, including in the Chris Thile Store and the Nonesuch Store, where orders include a print autographed by Thile while they last.
For his second recording of Bach Violin Sonatas and Partitas, twelve years after the first volume, Chris Thile opted for a more personal approach to the revered master composer’s works. This time, he allowed himself to take liberties with the scores, which he recorded in multiple, somewhat untraditional, locations of personal significance: Reservoir Studios and Tompkins Square Park in New York City; Farrell Recital Hall at Murray State University in Murray, KY; and Blackberry Farm in Walland, TN. Also out today is a video of Thile performing Sonata No. 3 in C major, BWV 1005: III. Largo, live at Yallarhammer Pavilion on Blackberry Farm in Walland, Tennessee. You can watch the video, directed by Matthew Edginton, here:
Thile will perform works by Bach, along with other material, during an extensive international solo US tour this fall through spring 2026. For details and tickets, visit nonesuch.com/on-tour.
Thile says in his liner note, “Volume 1, which contained the first three of the Six Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin, came out in 2013, and though I’m still proud of it, I can hear that I spent most of its development and execution worrying about whether Bach would like it ... not the kind of concern I usually harbor when making music, original or otherwise.
“The process of becoming a person who plays Bach is extraordinarily rewarding. My mentor, Edgar Meyer, has shown me and a whole lot of us that. And we’ll always be in the middle of that process,” he continues. “You practice Bach, like you practice yoga. Because it makes your life better. Because it makes the world around you seem like a better, happier place. Because communing with something THAT beautiful, made by a human being, continuing to be made and enjoyed by so many human beings, makes you proud to be human.
“And so you practice it. As often as you can, everywhere you go. Your living room. Hotel room. Onstage before the rest of the band shows up for soundcheck. In an empty corner of an airport after a cancelled flight ... the reason this record exists is that I love practicing Bach, and I wanted to try and share how that ongoing process feels and sounds to me,” Thile concludes. “Would he like it? Though I was tempted to capitalize ‘he’ just now, I’m trying not to care. Do I like it? Yes.”
Thile’s other Nonesuch releases include a duo album with guitarist Michael Daves, two records with bassist Edgar Meyer (one of which won a Grammy), a Bach album with Yo-Yo Ma and Meyer, a duet album with jazz pianist Brad Mehldau, and the T Bone Burnett–produced soundtrack to the Coen brothers’ Inside Llewyn Davis. He was featured on Brad Mehldau’s Elliott Smith songbook album, Ride into the Sun, released this past August.
As a soloist, Thile has released seven previous albums—most recently Laysongs, an album featuring six original songs and three covers, all of which contextualize and banter with his ideas about spirituality. He spent his formative years as a member of the Grammy Award–winning, multi-platinum selling band Nickel Creek, which reunited in 2014 for its highest-charting album to date, A Dotted Line, on Nonesuch. Nickel Creek subsequently released Celebrants in 2023. For four years, Thile hosted public radio favorite Live from Here with Chris Thile (formerly known as A Prairie Home Companion).
Thile has been performing his playfully ambitious biographical composition ATTENTION! (a narrative song cycle for extroverted mandolinist and orchestra) around the US since 2023. It tells the true story of a young Thile meeting Carrie Fisher at a rooftop bar in San Diego, transforming that moment into a larger meditation on ambition, identity, and the art of performance. 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. Season two is out now.
Chris Thile’s 'Bach: Sonatas and Partitas, Vol. 2' Out Now on Nonesuch
Mandolin virtuoso Chris Thile’s Bach: Sonatas and Partitas, Vol. 2 is out now on Nonesuch Records. The two-LP album comprises Partita No. 2 in D minor, BWV 1004; Sonata No. 3 in C major, BWV 1005; and Partita No. 3 in E major, BWV 1006. You can find it everywhere here, including in the Chris Thile Store and the Nonesuch Store, where orders include a print autographed by Thile while they last.
For his second recording of Bach Violin Sonatas and Partitas, twelve years after the first volume, Chris Thile opted for a more personal approach to the revered master composer’s works. This time, he allowed himself to take liberties with the scores, which he recorded in multiple, somewhat untraditional, locations of personal significance: Reservoir Studios and Tompkins Square Park in New York City; Farrell Recital Hall at Murray State University in Murray, KY; and Blackberry Farm in Walland, TN. Also out today is a video of Thile performing Sonata No. 3 in C major, BWV 1005: III. Largo, live at Yallarhammer Pavilion on Blackberry Farm in Walland, Tennessee. You can watch the video, directed by Matthew Edginton, here:
Thile will perform works by Bach, along with other material, during an extensive international solo US tour this fall through spring 2026. For details and tickets, visit nonesuch.com/on-tour.
Thile says in his liner note, “Volume 1, which contained the first three of the Six Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin, came out in 2013, and though I’m still proud of it, I can hear that I spent most of its development and execution worrying about whether Bach would like it ... not the kind of concern I usually harbor when making music, original or otherwise.
“The process of becoming a person who plays Bach is extraordinarily rewarding. My mentor, Edgar Meyer, has shown me and a whole lot of us that. And we’ll always be in the middle of that process,” he continues. “You practice Bach, like you practice yoga. Because it makes your life better. Because it makes the world around you seem like a better, happier place. Because communing with something THAT beautiful, made by a human being, continuing to be made and enjoyed by so many human beings, makes you proud to be human.
“And so you practice it. As often as you can, everywhere you go. Your living room. Hotel room. Onstage before the rest of the band shows up for soundcheck. In an empty corner of an airport after a cancelled flight ... the reason this record exists is that I love practicing Bach, and I wanted to try and share how that ongoing process feels and sounds to me,” Thile concludes. “Would he like it? Though I was tempted to capitalize ‘he’ just now, I’m trying not to care. Do I like it? Yes.”
Thile’s other Nonesuch releases include a duo album with guitarist Michael Daves, two records with bassist Edgar Meyer (one of which won a Grammy), a Bach album with Yo-Yo Ma and Meyer, a duet album with jazz pianist Brad Mehldau, and the T Bone Burnett–produced soundtrack to the Coen brothers’ Inside Llewyn Davis. He was featured on Brad Mehldau’s Elliott Smith songbook album, Ride into the Sun, released this past August.
As a soloist, Thile has released seven previous albums—most recently Laysongs, an album featuring six original songs and three covers, all of which contextualize and banter with his ideas about spirituality. He spent his formative years as a member of the Grammy Award–winning, multi-platinum selling band Nickel Creek, which reunited in 2014 for its highest-charting album to date, A Dotted Line, on Nonesuch. Nickel Creek subsequently released Celebrants in 2023. For four years, Thile hosted public radio favorite Live from Here with Chris Thile (formerly known as A Prairie Home Companion).
Thile has been performing his playfully ambitious biographical composition ATTENTION! (a narrative song cycle for extroverted mandolinist and orchestra) around the US since 2023. It tells the true story of a young Thile meeting Carrie Fisher at a rooftop bar in San Diego, transforming that moment into a larger meditation on ambition, identity, and the art of performance. 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. Season two is out now.
Composer Sarah Kirkland Snider’s fifth full-length LP, a new, all-orchestral album Forward Into Light, produced by Silas Brown and recorded by Metropolis Ensemble led by artistic director/conductor Andrew Cyr, is due February 27 on New Amsterdam / Nonesuch Records. It features Forward Into Light, inspired by the American women’s suffrage movement; the string orchestra and harp (Noël Wan) version of Drink the Wild Ayre; Eye of Mnemosyne, a work on memory, innovation, and culture; and Something for the Dark, a meditation on resilience. Snider says: “I chose to create an album of these four works because they share themes of perseverance, alliance, and evolution through dark and light—concepts that have been at the forefront of my mind in recent years."
After a nearly five-decade career as one of his generation’s defining rock bassists, time and space have finally allowed Flea to work with a dream band of modern jazz visionaries, returning to his first instrument and musical love, the trumpet, for a new album to be released in 2026 on Nonesuch. A preview, Flea’s original song “A Plea,” is out now. Written and performed by Flea, “A Plea” urges listeners to “build a bridge, shine a light, make something beautiful and see somebody, give it to somebody.” Featuring Flea on electric bass, vocals, and trumpet, the ensemble also includes double bassist Anna Butterss and guitarist Jeff Parker, as well as drummer Deantoni Parks, percussionist Mauro Refosco, alto flutist Rickey Washington, and trombonist Vikram Devasthali. Chris Warren joins on vocals, as does the song’s producer Josh Johnson, who also plays alto saxophone. Also out today: a music video, directed by Clara Balzary and featuring choreography by Sadie Wilking.
