Nickel Creek confirms extensive 2024 headline tour, UB show

Acclaimed new album, ‘Celebrants,’ out now
√ Performing at University at Buffalo Center for the Arts March 23; general tickets on sale Friday, Oct. 27

Press Release

The University at Buffalo Center for the Arts will present Grammy Award-winning Nickel Creek – mandolinist Chris Thile, violinist Sara Watkins and guitarist Sean Watkins – as part of the trio’s continuing extensive headline tour. The show is set for 7:30 p.m. Saturday, March 23, 2024, in the Mainstage Theatre, located at the Center for the Arts, North Campus. Tickets are $49, $69, $79, $89; and limited number of VIP tickets are available through Ticketmaster.

Tickets will be available for presale starting at 10 a.m. Wednesday, with general on-sale following at 10 a.m. Friday, Oct. 27. Full details can be found at www.nickelcreek.com/tour. Tickets can also be purchased online at ticketmaster.com, ubcfa.org or in person at the Center for the Arts box office.

Nickel Creek images provided by the University at Buffalo

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The upcoming shows add to a landmark year for the group, which released “Celebrants” – its fifth studio album and first release in nine years – this past spring via Thirty Tigers (stream/purchase here).

Additionally, Nickel Creek recently received the Lifetime Achievement Trailblazer Award at the 2023 Americana Music Association Honors & Awards and performed on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” and “CBS Saturday Morning” earlier this year.

Reflecting on the project, the band shared, “This is a record about embracing the friction inherent in real human connection. We begin the record yearning for and pursuing harmonious connection. We end the record having realized that truly harmonious connection can only be achieved through the dissonance that we’ve spent our entire adult lives trying to avoid.”

Together a sum of more than their staggering parts, Nickel Creek revolutionized bluegrass and folk in the early 2000s and ushered in a new era of what we now recognize as Americana music. In a 2020 retrospective titled, “The Year Folk Broke: How Nickel Creek Made Americana The New Indie Rock,” NPR Music praised, “20 years ago this month, an album arrived that seemed to speak all these languages at once: unafraid to push the boundaries of its primary genre, and packing the musical chops to bring such an eclectic vision to life. Behind it were three musicians just barely old enough to vote.”

Each member of Nickel Creek has also taken part in many outside projects over the years. Thile is a 2012 recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship and served as the host of the American radio variety show “Live from Here” (formerly “A Prairie Home Companion”) from 2016-20. He has also released collaborative albums with world-renowned musicians Yo-Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer, Brad Mehldau and Stuart Duncan, as well as six studio albums with his Grammy-winning band, Punch Brothers.

Sean Watkins is a co-founder of Watkins Family Hour, alongside Sara, who has released three albums and maintains a long-running collaborative show in Los Angeles. Sean has also released a string of solo albums, while Sara’s extracurricular projects include the aforementioned Watkins Family Hour, as well as the Grammy-winning roots trio I’m With Her, which she co-founded alongside Aoife O’Donovan and Sarah Jarosz. Sara has released four studio albums and has contributed fiddle to recordings by artists including Phoebe Bridgers, the Killers and John Mayer.