Last night, Trey Anastasio revived his orchestral live show with a performance alongside the Nashville Symphony Orchestra at Nashville’s Schermerhorn Symphony Center. Structured much like his performances with Phish and Trey Anastasio Band, the show was comprised of two sets and an encore, and included symphonic renderings of some of his greatest compositions.
But while his musical tastes are notably diverse and stylistically broad, Anastasio’s educational background lies in classical composition. Since 2001, the Phish guitarist has worked with a several highly-regarded symphonies nationwide, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, and the National Symphony Orchestra, composing orchestral arrangements of his Phish material and leading the ensembles on guitar. Most recently, in the Fall of 2014, Trey performed a series of orchestral concerts to showcase his newest composition, “Petrichor,” which has since been adapted for the Phish canon (on 2016’s Big Boat) and served as the centerpiece for the 2016-2017 New Year’s Gag.
The Nashville symphonic show marked his first performance with an orchestra since 9/26/14 at the Hollywood Bowl, exactly three years and one day prior. The performance featured numerous orchestral Trey mainstay arrangements. Set one included “First Tube,” “Brian and Robert,” “Divided Sky,” and “Stash,” while the second set featured a trio of Trey’s longest and most involved orchestral interpretations: “Time Turns Elastic,” “Petrichor,” and “You Enjoy Myself.” The show also featured a couple more surprising selections, as Trey and the orchestra’s conductor led the ensemble through the orchestral debuts of TAB’s “Summer of ’89” and sweeping Phish instrumental “What’s The Use?” Finally, for the encore, Trey and the orchestra pulled out one more orchestral debut–Phish classic “The Lizards”–before closing out the evening with “Water In The Sky.” You can watch a selection of videos from the performance below:
“What’s The Use” (via YouTube user gayanastasio):
“Petrichor” (via YouTuve user Todd Binkley)
“You Enjoy Myself” (via YouTube user Clay Maddox):
“The Lizards” (via YouTube user Ben Katz):
Trey will perform one more orchestral show this fall, with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra in the Georgia capitol tomorrow, September 29th.
SETLIST: Trey Anastasio & The Nashville Symphony Orchestra | Schermerhorn Symphony Center | Nashville, TN | 9/27/17
SET 1: First Tube, Brian and Robert, Divided Sky, Summer of ’89, What’s the Use?, Stash
SET 2: Time Turns Elastic, Petrichor, You Enjoy Myself
ENCORE: The Lizards, Water in the Sky
[Cover Photo via Instagram user @queerdeadheads]