In Tune

About ten years ago, the music director of Westminster Presbyterian Church in Minneapolis asked Thompson and Sewell to perform a concert at the church. Though the two had never played together, they agreed to the request and settled on a Duke Ellington medley. More important than what they played, though, was that they’d discovered a bold, fresh sound.

Soon after, Thompson began performing jazz classics with Sewell and arranging pieces for them. His first works were interpretations of the Ellington songbook. He then moved onto Fats Waller, Scott Joplin, George Gershwin, and a tribute to ragtime great Joseph Lamb. (To date, Thompson’s arranged more than thirty pieces for their duo.) “She makes me think,” says Thompson. “It creates a different angle on the song. The cello creates countermelodies and complements the flow. It’s a great enhancement for ragtime.”

Two years after that first concert, Thompson, a longtime A Prairie Home Companion musician, arranged a performance for them. Since then, the duo has appeared on APHC ten times and continues to tour with the show.

“Butch’s style of playing is much looser than what I was trained to do,” says Sewell, a Juilliard graduate and founder of the Lark Quartet. “I marvel at the confidence and the ability [he has] to go out on a limb and try something completely new each time he performs.”

Get a first-hand listen to Thompson and Sewell’s engaging, elegant music when they perform Ellington, Lamb, and others at the Phipps. Oct. 21. 109 Locust St., Hudson, 715-386-2305