{"id":792900,"date":"2026-07-30T07:24:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T07:24:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/792900\/"},"modified":"2026-07-30T07:24:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T07:24:12","slug":"st-vincent-on-her-orchestral-live-album-tour-and-hollywood-bowl-date","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/792900\/","title":{"rendered":"St. Vincent on Her Orchestral Live Album, Tour and Hollywood Bowl Date"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tSt. Vincent<\/a>\u2018s music goes beyond the merely dramatic, at times; it can be harrowing, if not soul-shaking, in its most intimate and passionate moments. So it\u2019s not completely surprising that Annie Clark, the woman behind the nom de plume, would be interested in enhancing that sense of drama by finally working with a full orchestra \u2014 on her recently released album \u201cLive in London!\u201d and, now, on a U.S. tour that culminates with an appearance Aug. 2 at the Hollywood Bowl<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat is surprising, perhaps, is that in the same breath that she mentions Stravinsky as an influence on her music, Clark also mentions Disney scores of yore. Just don\u2019t expect the birds to come down and chirp in circles around her head as she puts a new spin on catalog favorites like \u201cHell Is Near,\u201d \u201cViolent Times,\u201d \u201cBlack Rainbow\u201d and \u201cParis Is Burning.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThis current turn of events was born when Clark was invited to participate in the BBC Proms classical\/pops crossover program, as captured on the new album, which was initially put out only on streaming and just had a vinyl edition come out in July. \u201cLive in London!\u201d would have been an essential enough addition to the catalog of one of rock\u2019s modern greats, even without an in-the-flesh spinoff tour. But American fans are particularly lucky to hear her joined by a pickup orchestra in a short series of shows that will culminate in three California dates this week: On Thursday, she\u2019ll appear in San Francisco at Davies Symphony Hall with the San Francisco Symphony. Saturday, Clark will play San Diego\u2019s Rady Shell at Jacobs Park with the San Diego Symphony Orchestra. And finally, Sunday will bring her to L.A. for a show with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra.<\/p>\n

\n\tVariety spoke with Clark by phone about why these shows represent a dream come true. Even though she\u2019s rarely employed full orchestration in her studio recordings, the sound of a symphony has sometimes been implicit in her head, even if she didn\u2019t actually go there till now.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen you did the orchestral show last year that is captured on \u201cLive in London!,\u201d were you planning on releasing it as a live album as as a one-off, and that might be the end of it, or were you always hoping you\u2019d be able to get a full tour out of it?<\/p>\n

\n\tWell, I wasn\u2019t even thinking as far as a live album. I just knew that I was gonna do the BBC Proms with Jules (Buckley, the conductor and co-arranger) and Rachel (Eckroth, her keyboard player, also an arranger) and have a great time with it, and that\u2019s all I knew. And then pretty much the second I got off stage, I had my manager there and Rachel, and I was like, \u201cWe have to do this again.\u201d It was just the most euphoric feeling, playing this music with an orchestra. And then you go, \u201cLet\u2019s definitely do it again, but also, we have this moment captured in time. Let\u2019s let people who were not there actually listen to it as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn Los Angeles, we\u2019re privileged to get a few Hollywood Bowl shows every year that have a pop star or rock band playing with an orchestra. And sometimes they\u2019re incredibly well-integrated, but occasionally it feels like the performer didn\u2019t want to change their arrangements that much to make room for a philharmonic.<\/p>\n

\n\tWell, that is a waste of the philharmonic.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhere did the impulse come from originally for you to want to perform your music this way?<\/p>\n

\n\tOriginally it was this BBC Proms scenario. Jules Buckley and Rachel Ackroth are friends, and a few years ago, they were like, \u201cOkay, well, let\u2019s have St. Vincent do the BBC Proms\u201d \u2014 that\u2019s a series that they do with pop artists and symphonies \u2014 and it didn\u2019t happen at first just for scheduling reasons. But then it made sense to do it last September, and that was a really fun process of song selection, going, \u201cOK, what story do you wanna tell?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSo much of my early work, I would say, is really, really influenced by orchestral music. Especially, I would say, \u201cActor\u201d\u2026. well, the first three records, I would say. \u201cActor\u201d is very influenced by Disney film scores and Stravinsky and Debussy. So it\u2019s like, \u201cOK, let\u2019s dust off some songs that haven\u2019t been played in a long time.\u201d And also, I wrote them wishing there was an orchestra. But those early records are scrappy. I could only afford one French horn player, or whatever, but I always kind of envisioned them being these grand affairs. So we started out with song selection. Rachel and Jules began working on arrangements and would end them to me, and sometimes I would have a lot of notes, and then sometimes I would have basically no notes and go, \u201cGo with God. This is heaven.\u201d Then the rest is history.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s interesting to know that that connection or pull was there for you on the early records. Because not knowing so much about how this whole process came about, one could look at the setlist, which begins with you three songs from \u201cAll Born Screaming,\u201d and imagine that there was something about the dramatic quality of \u201cAll Born Screaming\u201d that made you envision this.<\/p>\n

\n\tYeah. I think the choice to start with the \u201cAll Born Screamies\u201d is to kind of say, \u201cOK, well, here\u2019s where we left off.\u201d And then, from there, \u201cHere\u2019s almost a retrospective.\u201d It turns out I\u2019ve made a lot of music over the past few years. And it was really gratifying for me to go back and see, like, oh, I used to write really weird (material). Because I don\u2019t go back and listen to my own music. But to revisit and go, \u201cOh, wow, what was I thinking?\u201d \u2014not in a bad way, just in an \u201cAh, this is interesting\u201d way. But it\u2019s been nice. Heartening.<\/p>\n

\n\tCan you give examples of songs that you wouldn\u2019t normally do that suddenly seemed perfect for an orchestral show?<\/p>\n

\n\tOh, God, I mean, \u201cBlack Rainbow\u201d from my second record starts with my Judy Garland fever dream. It starts with this floaty, almost big-band moment. It\u2019s almost a \u201cbirth of the cool\u201d sort of thing, and then it ends in, like, Stravinsky destruction. That\u2019s a song that, with a rock band alone, I don\u2019t think that we would do that one justice, because it has those ornate flourishes in it.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn starting the tour, you did a little video clip for Amazon where you talked about your three favorites to do in this show. One of them was \u201cSmoking Section,\u201d which is a real tour de force, starting with this bonus instrumental introduction. It has these big, dramatic punctuation points, while part of the time it\u2019s just piano and drums with your voice. That one really takes a journey.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou get the full sampler platter in that one. I think Rachel and Jules just crushed it on that arrangement. I love that intro with the arpeggiated keyboard, and then you go on this whole journey before I even start singing. Then it gets to be as stark and lonely and also as grand and bittersweet as it possibly can be, all in the span of one song.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cSmoking Section\u201d is a song where you\u2019re singing about big-picture emotional issues in life, and it feels appropriate to have an orchestra going along with and bolstering you as you contemplate life in all its strange moments. That\u2019s a very personal song, but it feels appropriate to have the grandness at the same time.<\/p>\n

\n\tDefinitely. I mean, it\u2019s life and death and depression.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cLos Ageless\u201d is another song that would typically appear in a non-orchestral set of yours, , but it\u2019s a song you singled out as really feeling good in this setting.<\/p>\n

\n\tWell, what I love is that the \u201cMasseduction\u201d recorded version of this song is kind of icy and almost like ZZ Top meets electro. Or ZZ Top meets Robyn, or something. What I love about Rachel\u2019s arrangement of \u201cLos Ageless\u201d is that it strips all the iciness away, and really gets to the heart of the song, which is that it\u2019s a torch song, and it\u2019s a song about being brokenhearted and bereft. There are atonal jabs, and there are jazz flourishes, and there\u2019s kind of a deeply romantic strain running through it as well. I love that it just goes straight to the heart of the song and transforms it from its original record version, almost more than anything else.<\/p>\n

\n\tDo you generally think of these orchestral arrangements more as augmentation or reinvention?<\/p>\n

\n\tI think it\u2019s song-dependent. To me, a song like \u201cMarrow\u201d is augmentation. That\u2019s my \u201cPetrushka\u201d dream come true, you know? I wrote that song so inspired by Stravinsky\u2019s \u201cPetrushka\u201d [the Russian composer\u2019s ballet score from the 1910s], but that\u2019s how I always imagined it, but never had the money. And then other songs I think very much fall into the category of reinvention. When you sing them and the meaning of them changes to you, when the sentiment really changes, then I\u2019d call that a reinvention.<\/p>\n

\n\tHave there been shows you\u2019ve seen in the past where there was a rock or pop performer playing with an orchestra, on record or live, that inspired you for doing something like this?<\/p>\n

\n\tI think Beck has done beautiful shows with orchestras, and that makes so much sense because it\u2019s really all already in the music, and you can just extrapolate. You know, \u201cSea Change\u201d is masterfully arranged already, with strings, so there\u2019s certain things that just make sense and, and are really exciting and beautiful. Then, I didn\u2019t see this show, but I would put Portishead\u2019s live album, \u201cLive at Roseland,\u201d as a great example of the two worlds coming together. To be honest, this as a genre is not something I\u2019m super familiar with. Are there classic things that I\u2019m missing? Like, \u201cOh, you never heard Madonna live with the New York Phil\u201d?<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen people hear these kind of arrangements, it\u2019s a clich\u00e9, but they will say, \u201cOh, it makes it feel more cinematic,\u201d or something. Do you feel that way at all?<\/p>\n

\n\tI mean, certainly I think if you took my vocal out of any of these\u2026 I was listening to a whole lot of David Axelrod on my second record. I love Morricone. There were just actual film composers who are referenced initially in the work that it certainly would make sense that, when rearranged with the whole thing, it could feel cinematic, yeah.<\/p>\n

\n\tAre you working on new stuff before or after this tour?<\/p>\n

\n\tNothing that I can talk about too frankly, but yeah, I\u2019m working on a collaboration record that I\u2019m really excited about. I got to have a little cameo in a Richard Foreman opera [\u201cWhat to Wear,\u201d which premiered at BAM in January], and that really inspired me and opened my eyes to that brilliant world of New York theater and the opera scene. There\u2019s certainly things like that that I\u2019m excited about. I worked with Mon Laferte recently, which is great [on \u201cTiempos Violentos,\u201d a Spanish-languge version of the St. Vincent sog \u201cViolent Times\u201d]. I want to talk about other things, but\u2026 Yeah, I\u2019m always working on a next thing.<\/p>\n

\n\tHow have you been feeling about how the tour has worked out, with most of the dates behind you now?<\/p>\n

\n\tOh, it\u2019s great. I love this band; I love Jules; I love everyone. The shows themselves are beautiful, and also, they keep you on your toes because it\u2019s a new orchestra every night. It\u2019s not always even the same amount of players, so everything\u2019s in flux and unique and special. And I\u2019m just having the best time. I hope that this is just something that I get to do going forward whenever the time is right and maybe there\u2019s a new batch of songs and arrangements. Maybe this could be evergreen, because it\u2019s my Judy Garland dream.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"St. Vincent\u2018s music goes beyond the merely dramatic, at times; it can be harrowing, if not soul-shaking, in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":792901,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[88,40063,216,206799],"class_list":["post-792900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-hollywood-bowl","tag-music","tag-st-vincent"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=792900"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792900\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/792901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=792900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=792900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=792900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}