Symphony's new SummerFest to challenge boundaries

"Ibelieve in total ignorance of musical boundaries," says Chris Thile, mandolinist and vocalist for the much-beloved-if-now-defunct acoustic group Nickel Creek. "Boundaries don't exist to real musicians. All music is made up of the same notes."

Thile will have plenty of opportunity to abandon genres when he performs with his new band, Punch Brothers, next month as part of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra's (SSO) SummerFest schedule. A new and somewhat experimental program for SSO, SummerFest will fill part of the time between the Symphony's official end of the season this month and a new season beginning in September.

SummerFest replaces SSO's annual Summer Classics program, which presented "Carmina Burana" last year and a baseball-themed show in 2006. Along with Punch Brothers, this summer's roster of artist appearances includes renowned trumpet player Wynton Marsalis with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, bluegrass legend Earl Scruggs, banjo master Béla Fleck, virtuoso cellist Maya Beiser and Juno Award-winning jazz vocalist Sophie Milman.

Ubiquitous throughout the series, which begins Thursday, will be Mark O'Connor, the Grammy Award-winning composer of new American classical music and a renowned fiddler equally at home playing folk, classical or jazz.

O'Connor, a favorite in his Seattle hometown and frequent performer at Benaroya Hall, organized SummerFest in collaboration with SSO. While he's officially performing in three of SummerFest's eight programs, he isn't ruling out a cameo appearance in one or two other shows.

"I might be standing by, backstage, at the ready," O'Connor laughs on a call from his home in New York City. "Fiddle in hand, ready to spring: 'Hey, I'm here!' "

If something like that were to happen, there would be good reason. At first blush, SummerFest looks like a nicely eclectic production, a balance of distinct musical types. But O'Connor's involvement, and the fact that so many of the scheduled performers are his frequent artistic collaborators, speaks to the program's origins in his reputation for crossing musical boundaries with joyful determination.

"A lot of these artists are friends and groundbreakers," O'Connor says. "They transcend barriers. I played with Earl Scruggs last year at the Kennedy Center Honors, and I asked him if he'd participate."

O'Connor, who studied violin in his youth at the feet of Texas fiddler Benny Thomasson and French jazz violinist Stéphane Grappelli, was influenced by numerous musical traditions. Earlier this decade, he was joined by cellist Yo-Yo Ma and doublebassist Edgar Meyer on his recorded compositions for "Appalachia Waltz" and its follow-up, "Appalachian Journey," which won a Grammy.

An authority on 18th-century American traditional music, O'Connor recorded with Marsalis on the CD "Liberty!" in 1997. He also has worked closely with Thile on recordings and stage. On the phone from Knoxville, Tenn., Thile says O'Connor "has been a hero of mine since I was seven. He's very influential."

"I wanted to come to my hometown and do something besides my annual concert," says O'Connor. "I had developed the SummerFest concept years ago and attempted it in another city, but realized there wasn't the audience [there] for a festival about crossing boundaries. When the opportunity came to work on this with Seattle Symphony, I jumped on it and invited artists who could fulfill the concept's potential."

"We've worked with Mark a lot," says Tom Philion, executive director of Seattle Symphony Orchestra. "He's a very popular and great artist. ... And we're excited to have a program with so many kinds of music and a chance to grow over time. It comes just as we're heading toward Benaroya Hall's 10th anniversary, making more good use of a great asset for Seattle."

SummerFest begins Thursday with Seattle Symphony music director Gerard Schwarz leading the orchestra and superstar soprano Jane Eaglen in the Prelude and "Liebestod" from Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde," as well as Mahler's Symphony No. 6 in A minor.

It closes with Scruggs and Fleck on July 14. For details on these performances and everything in between, see the accompanying story.

"You'll hear beautiful instruments and voices," says O'Connor. "I think SummerFest could become a national, even internationally known festival. It's long overdue for Seattle."

Tom Keogh: tomwkeogh@yahoo.com