Carnegie Hall Citywide: Tessa Lark & Michael Thurber

• Tessa Lark, violin
• Michael Thurber, bass
• Louis Cato, guitar & vocals

American folk and European classical styles come together with virtuosity, playfulness, and a contagious sense of curiosity in the hands of violinist-fiddler Tessa Lark and composer-bassist Michael Thurber. In music that ranges from works by J.S. Bach to a variety of bluegrass, jazz, Appalachian music, folk songs, and improvised works, their seamless musical partnership has delighted audiences at Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts, Lincoln Center's Mostly Mozart Festival, and beyond. Join them for a free, Friday-night performance in Manhattan's Bryant Park alongside special guest Louis Cato, the Grammy-nominated guitarist and vocalist widely recognized as the bandleader for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

Award-winning violinist Tessa Lark and virtuoso composer and bassist Michael Thurber have come together to create a duo unlike any other. By fusing their classical and American music influences, they have created a wholly original sound that they bring to audiences around the country in a charismatic live show. The 2019-2020 season included a headlining performance at Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival; a Kimmel Center debut concert with legendary flautist Marina Piccinini; and guest-hosting a live broadcast of NPR’s From The Top.

Lark and Thurber met years ago as alumni of From The Top. They began developing their duo collaboration in 2016 after a one-off performance at an event for WXQR in New York City.

About Carnegie Hall

Carnegie Hall's mission is to present extraordinary music and musicians on the three stages of this legendary hall, to bring the transformative power of music to the widest possible audience, to provide visionary education programs, and to foster the future of music through the cultivation of new works, artists, and audiences.

About Tessa Lark, violin

Violinist Tessa Lark is one of the most captivating artistic voices of our time, consistently praised by critics and audiences for her astounding range of sounds, technical agility, and musical elegance. In 2020 she was nominated for a GRAMMY in the Best Classical Instrumental Solo category and received one of Lincoln Center’s prestigious Emerging Artist Awards, the special Hunt Family Award. Other recent honors include a 2018 Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship and a 2016 Avery Fisher Career Grant, Silver Medalist in the 9th Quadrennial International Violin Competition of Indianapolis, and winner of the 2012 Naumburg International Violin Competition. A budding superstar in the classical realm, she is also a highly acclaimed fiddler in the tradition of her native Kentucky, delighting audiences with programming that includes Appalachian and bluegrass music and inspiring composers to write for her.

Tessa has been a featured soloist at numerous US orchestras, recital venues, and festivals since making her concerto debut with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra at age 16. She has appeared with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra; the Louisville Orchestra and the Buffalo Philharmonic; the Albany, Indianapolis, Knoxville and Seattle symphonies; and has been presented by such venues as Carnegie Hall, New York’s Lincoln Center, Amsterdam's Concertgebouw, the Music Center at Strathmore, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, San Francisco Performances, Ravinia, the Seattle Chamber Music Society, Australia’s Musica Viva Festival, and the Marlboro, Mostly Mozart, Bridgehampton, and La Jolla summer festivals.

Highlights of her 2021-22 season include debuts at London’s Wigmore Hall and Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall; return appearances for recital series such as Cal Performances and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum; and numerous concerto engagements, including the world premiere of Michael Schachter’s violin concerto, Cycles of Life, with the Knoxville Symphony in April 2022.

Tessa’s debut commercial recording – SKY, a bluegrass-inspired violin concerto written for her by Michael Torke and performed with the Albany Symphony Orchestra – earned a 2020 GRAMMY nomination, and Tessa’s discography has been expanding ever since. Recordings include Fantasy, an album on the First Hand Records label that includes fantasias by Schubert, Telemann and Fritz Kreisler, Ravel’s Tzigane, and Tessa’s own Appalachian Fantasy; Invention, a debut album of the violin-bass duo Lark and Thurber that comprises arrangements of Two-Part Inventions by J.S. Bach along with non-classical original compositions by Tessa and her fiancé, Michael Thurber; and a live performance recording of Astor Piazzolla’s The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires, released in 2021 by the Buffalo Philharmonic in honor of Piazzolla’s 100-year anniversary.

Tessa’s belief in music’s power to foster global connection and community across boundaries manifests in her genre-defying collaborations. Along with the Lark and Thurber duo, new projects include a string trio with composer-bassist Edgar Meyer and cellist Joshua Roman and a duo partnership with jazz guitarist Frank Vignola.

About Michael Thurber, bass

Songwriter/bassist/producer Michael Thurber is a singular artist whose career defies category. Whether composing scores for The Royal Shakespeare Company, playing bass in The Late Show With Stephen Colbert house band, scoring commercials for Vanity Fair and BBC, or co-founding the hit YouTube channel CDZA, Thurber has been guided by Duke Ellington’s principal: There are only two types of music – good and bad. Make the good kind.

As a theater lyricist/composer, Michael made his international debut scoring Antony and Cleopatra, directed by Oscar winner Tarell McCraney. He has scored numerous Public Theater productions, including Shakespeare In The Park's Merry Wives, Romeo Y Julieta starring Oscar winner Lupita Nyong'o, and Richard II starring André Holland. Michael’s musical GODDESS received its world premiere at Berkeley Rep in the fall of 2022.

As a bassist, Michael has performed with James Taylor, Willie Nelson, Chris Thile, Lianne La Havis, Cee Lo Green, Yo Yo Ma, The Zombies, Lin Manuel Miranda, Jon Batiste, and many others. Currently he tours the world in a Duo with Grammy-nominated Violinist Tessa Lark.

Michael has produced/co-written records in the R&B, indie, jazz, and classical spaces, including Downbeat Magazine’s Critic Pick Alma Oscura.

Michael studied music at Juilliard and The Interlochen Arts Academy.

About Louis Cato, guitar & vocals

Louis Cato is a Grammy Award-nominated and internationally acclaimed multi-instrumentalist, producer, and songwriter. He has worked with an array of artists including Bobby McFerrin, Snarky Puppy, Jon Batiste, Q-Tip, and A Tribe Called Quest.

His love of music started at age two, when the purchase of his first drum set evolved into an appreciation of southern gospel from his native North Carolina, and it continued into his education at the Berklee College of Music.

Cato has an undeniable ability to craft sonic landscapes into timeless masterpieces. After two decades of lending his talents to other projects, he released his first solo record Starting Now (2017), which he also mixed and produced entirely by himself. He is currently in postproduction on his newest album.

After playing in the house band for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert since the show’s 2015 inception, Cato was recently named bandleader for the newly renamed The Late Show Band.