This new collaboration of three artistically like-minded artists, each carving out their own niche in American music, tours together for the first time this season in a program including Bach and a new Edgar Meyer work, co-commissioned by the Lied Center. These fresh interpretations of existing and new music will be combined with some fancy fiddling on bass (Meyer), violin (Lark) and cello (Roman).

Multi-Grammy Award-winning bassist and composer Edgar Meyer has been hailed by The New Yorker as “…the most remarkable virtuoso in the relatively un-chronicled history of his instrument.” Meyer’s uniqueness in the field was recognized when he became the only bassist to be awarded the Avery Fisher Prize in addition to a MacArthur Award. He was honored with his fifth Grammy Award in 2015 for his Bass & Mandolin recording with Chris Thile, and he recently won two more at the 66th Annual Grammy Awards—Best Contemporary Instrumental Album for As We Speak, with Béla Fleck, Zakir Hussain and Rakesh Chaurasia; and Best Global Music Performance for “Pashto” from the release.

Meyer also recently completed a duo recording with Christian McBride as well as a recording of his three concertos with The Knights, conducted by Eric Jacobsen and produced by Chris Thile. In June 2023, to complete the concerto project, he recorded his “Concertino for Bass and 14 Strings” in the U.K. with the Scottish Ensemble led by Jonathan Morton, who commissioned and toured the piece with Meyer in Spring 2022. Additionally, Meyer is part of a five-composer group, each of whom composed a movement for a U.S. premiere with Joshua Bell and the New York Philharmonic in September 2023. In fall 2024, his newly formed trio with violinist Tessa Lark and cellist Joshua Roman will tour the U.S. Meyer is the subject of an ongoing documentary filmed and produced by Tessa Lark, Andrew Adair and Michael Thurber.

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 she is also a highly acclaimed fiddler in the tradition of her native Kentucky.

Highlights of Lark’s 2023–24 season included the world premiere of Carlos Izcaray’s violin concerto and performances of Michael Torke’s violin concerto, Sky—both pieces written for her—as well as her European orchestral debut with the Stuttgart Philharmonic. She has also performed with the Virginia Symphony, Buffalo Philharmonic, England’s City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and others, as well as duo concerts with double bassist Michael Thurber and jazz guitarist Frank Vignola.

Lark’s newest album, The Stradgrass Sessions, was released in 2023. Her debut commercial recording was the Grammy-nominated Sky, and her discography also includes Fantasy; Invention, recorded with Michael Thurber; and a live recording of Piazzolla’s Four Seasons of Buenos Aires.

In addition to her performance schedule, Lark champions young aspiring artists and supports the next generation of musicians through her work as co-host/creative of NPR’s From the Top.

Joshua Roman is a cello soloist and composer hailed for his “effortlessly expressive tone… and playful zest for exploration” (New York Times), as well as his “extraordinary technical and musical gifts” and “blend of precision and almost improvisatory freedom… that goes straight to the heart” (San Francisco Chronicle). His genre-bending programs and wide-ranging collaborations have grown out of an “enthusiasm for musical evolution that is as contagious as his love for the classics” (Seattle Times).

Committed to bringing classical music to new audiences, Roman has collaborated with world-class artists across genres and disciplines, including Edgar Meyer, DJ Spooky, Tony-winner/MacArthur Genius Bill T. Jones, Grammy Award-winning East African vocalist Somi, and Tony Award-nominated actor Anna Deavere Smith. His concert of the complete Bach Solo Cello Suites after the 2016 U.S. Presidential election had nearly a million live viewers, and his solo performance with the YouTube Symphony at Carnegie Hall was viewed by 33 million people across nearly 200 countries, with Yo-Yo Ma introducing him as “one of the great exemplars of the ideal 21st-century musician.”

As a soloist with an “exceptionally high quality of performances” (LA Times), Roman has performed with leading orchestras, including the ​​Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Toronto Symphony, BBC Scottish and Mariinsky Symphony Orchestra. As a composer, he has been commissioned by Music Academy of the West, Illinois Philharmonic, ProMusica Chamber Orchestra, and he has also premiered new works composed for him by Mason Bates, Reena Esmail, Timo Andres, Gabriela Lena Frank, Aaron Jay Kernis, Lisa Bielawa and others.