Courtesy photo.
Beloved Americana group returns with Celebrants, a new album recorded in Santa Barbara, plus special guest Hawktail
SUMMARY
- UCSB Arts & Lectures presents Nickel Creek with special guest Hawktail
- Sun, Oct 8 | 7 p.m. | Granada Theatre
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- Nickel Creek return to the stage with a new album, Celebrants, out now
- Special guest Hawktail are an instrumental acoustic quartet featuring fiddler Brittany Haas, bassist Paul Kowert (of Punch Brothers), guitarist Jordan Tice and mandolinist Dominick Leslie
- Nickel Creek is the opening concert of UCSB Arts & Lectures’ Americana series
- $41 – $106 / UCSB Students $20 (Current student ID required)
- Tickets & Info: www.ArtsAndLectures.UCSB.edu or The Granada Theatre, www.granadasb.org, or (805) 899-2222
“Nickel Creek made Americana the new Indie Rock.” NPR
“One of the most adventurous and eclectic groups in progressive acoustic music.” allmusic.com
SANTA BARBARA — UCSB Arts & Lectures presents Nickel Creek with special guest Hawktail on Sunday, October 8 at 7 p.m. at the Granada Theatre. Nickel Creek is the platinum-selling, internationally renowned roots trio featuring mandolinist Chris Thile, violinist Sara Watkins and guitarist Sean Watkins. The Grammy Award-winning band has revolutionized bluegrass and roots music since they captured the world’s attention with their self-titled LP, which showcased their instrumental virtuosity and songwriting prowess. All solo artists in their own right, the beloved trio’s 2023 album Celebrants represents a triumphant return to form after a nine-year break from recording and touring together. Special guest Hawktail are an acoustic instrumental quartet featuring Punch Brothers bassist Paul Kowert, fiddler Brittany Haas, guitarist Jordan Tice and mandolinist Dominick Leslie.
Nickel Creek, “Celebrants” official music video
ABOUT NICKEL CREEK
Nickel Creek is mandolinist Chris Thile, violinist Sara Watkins and guitarist Sean Watkins. Together a sum of more than their staggering parts, the trio revolutionized bluegrass and folk in the early 2000s and ushered in a new era of what we now recognize as Americana music. After a nine year absence, the Platinum-selling, Grammy Award-winning trio have returned in 2023 with the highly-anticipated album Celebrants – a bounty of 18 disparate but loosely connected songs written collectively during a creative retreat in Santa Barbara in early 2021. The result is perhaps the most audacious yet accessible release of the Grammy-winning trio’s 34-year career. The entire enterprise is, naturally, shot through with the trio’s virtuosic picking and shiver-inducing harmonies. The lyrics – addressing love, friendship, time and the universal travails of travel – combine the poetic and plain-spoken, hitting a sweet spot of ethereal and relatable as bridges are built, crossed, burned and rebuilt.
Nickel Creek broke through in 2000 with their Grammy-nominated, Alison Krauss-produced self-titled LP, which showcased not just their instrumental virtuosity but their burgeoning songwriting prowess. The trio quickly followed that effort with the Krauss-produced This Side, a landmark release that earned Nickel Creek the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album and brought their progressive take on acoustic music to a broader audience, greatly influencing the sound and trajectory of roots music in the process. 2005’s Grammy-nominated Why Should the Fire Die? found the trio pushing genre boundaries even further, incorporating elements of alt-rock and indie pop into their singular brand of acoustic music. 2014’s critically acclaimed and joyously received A Dotted Line ended a seven-year recording and touring hiatus for the band, during which members explored other musical and creative avenues.
Each member of Nickel Creek has taken part in many outside projects over the years, too. Thile is a 2012 recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship and served as the host of the American radio variety show Live from Here (formerly A Prairie Home Companion) from 2016 to 2020. Over the course of Nickel Creek’s career, Thile has released collaborative albums alongside world-renowned musicians like Yo-Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer, Brad Mehldau and Stuart Duncan. His Grammy-winning band Punch Brothers has released six studio albums, the most recent being 2022’s Hell on Church Street, a re-imagining of the beloved 1983 Tony Rice album Church Street Blues. Sean Watkins has kept busy outside of Nickel Creek, too, co-founding Watkins Family Hour alongside Sara, releasing three albums with the collective and maintaining a long-running collaborative show in Los Angeles for a decade. Sean has also released a string of solo albums, most recently 2020’s This Is Who We Are with the Bee Eaters. Sara Watkins’ extracurricular projects include the aforementioned Watkins Family Hour band, as well as co-founding the Grammy-winning roots trio I’m With Her alongside Aoife O’Donovan and Sarah Jarosz. Sara has released four studio albums, most recently 2021’s Under the Pepper Tree. She has contributed fiddle to recordings by artists like Phoebe Bridgers, the Killers and John Mayer.
ABOUT HAWKTAIL
Hawktail is the instrumental acoustic quartet of fiddler Brittany Haas, bassist Paul Kowert, guitarist Jordan Tice, and mandolinist Dominick Leslie. Though at first glance it looks like an acoustic superpicker side-project, their all-original music is cohesive and unique, distinguishing them as an ensemble with a sound built from the ground up. Flush with orchestral sweeps and sparse vigils, with strains of the American South and the North Atlantic, this cosmopolitan sound is not what you’d expect from a string band.
Each member of Hawktail brings a strong individuality to the project. Haas, whose 2004 self-titled release instantly became the touchstone for a generation of old-time fiddlers, has since lent her sound to Crooked Still, Live From Here, Steve Martin and David Rawlings, where she played alongside Kowert, well known as the Grammy-winning Punch Brothers’ virtuosic bass player. Tice is a rare guitar player whose music showcases his unique identity and a particular knack for song and tune-writing, and Leslie is a versatile mandolinist whose rhythmic sensibility has made him ubiquitous on the acoustic music scene for over a decade. However, despite each of their ability to contribute to many musical situations, something special happens when they unite as Hawktail. Together, they have fostered a reputation as a rare ensemble of composers and instrumentalists able to take the listener on a journey without the use of words.
ABOUT UCSB ARTS & LECTURES
Founded in 1959, UCSB Arts & Lectures (A&L) is the largest and most influential arts and lectures organization between Los Angeles and San Francisco. A&L annually presents more than a hundred public events, from critically acclaimed concerts and dance performances by world-renowned artists to talks by groundbreaking authors and film series at UCSB and Santa Barbara-area venues. With a mission to “educate, entertain and inspire,” A&L also oversees an outreach program that brings visiting artists and speakers into local classrooms and other venues for master classes, open rehearsals, discussions and more, serving K-12 students, college students and the general public.
Nickel Creek with special guest Hawktail is presented by UCSB Arts & Lectures.
Tickets are $41 – $106: General Public / $20 UCSB Students (Current student ID required)
For tickets or more information, call UCSB Arts & Lectures at (805) 893-3535 or purchase online at www.ArtsAndLectures.UCSB.edu.
Tickets are also available through the Granada box office at (805) 899-2222 and granadsb.org
UCSB Arts & Lectures gratefully acknowledges our Community Partners the Natalie Orfalea Foundation & Lou Buglioli for their generous support of the 2023-2024 season.