Here's why folk rocker Amos Lee has fallen in love with classical music

After playing dozens of symphony shows, folk rocker Amos Lee has fallen in love with classical music.

Lee told The Tennessean from his home in Philadelphia that he didn't come from a family like many kids who grew up listening to classical music, but is instead discovering a love for it later in life.

"I kind of love classical music," Lee said. "I love all music. I love gospel music and I love jazz music and I love hip hop music and R&B, but I've fallen in love with classical music since doing these shows."

And when he joins the Nashville Symphony for a trio of shows at the Schermerhorn Symphony Center later this month, his genuine love and appreciation will be on display.

"I didn't have classical music around my house," he said. "My mom wasn't a music teacher. I was always frankly intimidated by it. But the more I read, the more I watched and the more I understood someone as divinely gifted as Mozart, you realize he was just a hustler in his time. He was a genius, right? But he was also just writing music and trying to make a living and he wasn't beholden by that."

Not just an orchestra backing a musician

Lee originally played with the Nashville Symphony in 2017, but says this show will be completely different because his team and the symphony have put so much effort into charting and arrangements to create a show that's more "reined in." These shows will also offer a first glimpse at some of Lee's new music that has never been played live before.

"We've put a lot of work in over the years trying to actually figure out how to make these shows work, because there's a lot of challenges when it comes to putting on a 'pops show,' as the orchestra would call it. I think the audience is just sort of like, 'Oh, cool orchestra with, with a musician.' But behind the scenes there's a lot of work going on."

Conductor Andrew Lipke, who has been working with Lee for a decade, said part of the genius of these performances is Lee's desire for an honest collaboration between his music and the orchestra's potential to elevate it.

"From the get go, Amos has always wanted the orchestra to be heavily featured," Lipke said. "He is so generous and so open to wanting it to be a collaborative expression where everybody feels they are giving a piece of themselves to the presentation."

Lee said while it's hard work, he loves the collaborative aspect of working with new arrangements of his songs and the dynamic of working with an orchestra.

"I feel incredibly grateful, honestly, to even have the opportunity to do this, but I've also really taken it seriously to surround myself with people who write great arrangements, who really care about the orchestra, who really care about it being as collaborative as possible."

'We rehearse a song once.... but rarely twice'

While both parties work behind the scenes for months before a live show, Lee, his band and the orchestra only get a few hours to rehearse with everyone in the same room.

"This was a big part of the learning curve for us, is you show up and the day of the show you have a three-hour window to rehearse with them and that's it." Lee added that his own shows tend to be pretty "off the cuff" and are full of improvisation, which is not possible when collaborating with a symphony.

"The band has to know the arrangements. We have to keep our stuff in the lane that it's meant to be in. But, you know, the reward for that is that it's just really beautiful. I'm not a classical musician. I haven't written these charts. I get to fully experience it musically, almost like, frankly, as the audience."

Lipke added that among other things, orchestral musicians are great music readers.

"So what that means is it's like having a table read for a movie with Al Pacino and Tom Hanks," he said. "It comes out like the movie is done already. These musicians are so good at taking the music and making it so alive right off the page. We will rehearse a song once. Maybe one-and-a-half times, but rarely twice."

That added layer of depth and emotion creates what Lee says is "joyful, beautiful and overwhelming."

"I'm used to just singing these songs on my own like, 'OK, well here's this this four-chord song.' I don't have any musical background. I took one guitar lesson in my life. I don't know any theories so for me, this is all just ... very emotional."

Shows hopefully 'feed the flame of the love of music'

Lee hopes his symphony collaborations will draw both orchestra lovers who may not know his music as well as Amos Lee fans who might not be familiar with classical music.

"Hopefully a big part of this is introducing people to how amazing the orchestra is and how incredible these halls are so they can be like, 'Oh, I'm going to go listen to some Tchaikovsky or Aaron Copland or Beethoven.' To me, it's just about feeding the flame of the love of music for everyone. That's what I do for myself. And that's what I hope to do for other people."

And in doing that, Lee says although he's not an expert, he thinks the orchestra world is trying to embrace creative ways to engage with people. Different people.

"You know, the idea that classical music and orchestras can be inclusive and diverse is something that's really exciting and awesome. And I think when they're embracing it and we're embracing it, the only way is forward."

If you go:

What: Amos Lee with the Nashville Symphony

When: May 9-11

Where: Schermerhorn Symphony Center

Tickets: nashvillesymphony.org

Melonee Hurt covers music and music business at The Tennessean, part of the USA TODAY NETWORK — Tennessee. Reach Melonee at [email protected], on X @HurtMelonee or Instagram at @MelHurtWrites.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Folk rocker Amos Lee talks classical music, Nashville Symphony, more