Punch Brothers at Varsity Theater

Collecting five singular abilities and viewpoints into one musical force, Punch Brothers featuring Chris Thile have established their place among the most dynamic and talented presences across the full range of contemporary music-making. As performing and recording artists, composers and interpreters, technicians and stylists, they continue to push the boundaries of possibility while maintaining an unerring devotion to the basic audience experience.

In the 2009-10 season, the band visits a long list of venues including Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall (where they debuted in Zankel Hall in 2007), the Somerville Theater in Boston, Old Town School in Chicago, the Herbst Theater in San Francisco, UMS Ann Arbor, Duke University, the University of Wisconsin in Madison, and many others. They have performed recently in nearly every conceivable format and space, from small clubs (they have a regular series at the Living Room in New York and have played frequently at Largo in Los Angeles) to concert halls (Benaroya Hall in Seattle, Sheldon Hall in St. Louis, Mondavi Center in Davis, Pabst Theater in Milwaukee, the Allen Room in New York, in addition to Carnegie) to festivals of all kinds (Ravinia, Aspen, Telluride, Spoleto, Savannah, Chamber Music Northwest). Their shows include an unpredictable mix of original songs written by the band, the 4-movement chamber suite The Blind Leaving the Blind (composed by Thile), traditional bluegrass and folk tunes, arrangements of Bach and Mozart, and covers of Radiohead, The Beatles, The Band, The White Stripes, The Strokes, and multiple other sources.

Punch Brothers first came together, though nameless at the time, for the making of the 2006 album How to Grow A Woman from the Ground, which earned them a Grammy® nomination for the song "The Eleventh Reel" and contains an eclectic mix of covers and original songs. Following that experience, the band began touring and eventually adopted the name Punch Brothers (from the Mark Twain story "Punch, Brothers, Punch!") before releasing their second album, Punch, on Nonesuch in 2008. Punch comprises music written collectively by Punch Brothers alongside Thile's The Blind Leaving the Blind, a 40-minute quintet that was premiered at Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall and performed across the US and UK. Their next album will be released on Nonesuch in Spring 2010.

At home in a dizzying array of settings even outside of their expansive core activities, Punch Brothers are the subject of an upcoming feature-length documentary called How to Grow a Band, have appeared on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, and were among three finalists in ESPN's cut-throat, fan-voted battle of the bands in interpretations of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame". The band members' diverse backgrounds and extraordinary talents make the group impossible to describe and thrilling to experience.