Amos Lee talks about his Philadelphia Orchestra collaboration on the WXPN Midday Show

Ahead of his headlining concert this Wednesday backed by the Philadelphia Orchestra at The Mann Center, Philly singer-songwriter fave Amos Lee called into WXPN’s Midday Show last week to talk about the concert and the inspiration behind it.

“We played an orchestra show with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra at Red Rocks, which was a mind-blowing, life-affirming experience,” Lee said. “And I was like ‘I want to do that again.’ Because it worked! And as simple as some of my songs are, the guys writing the charts for me [Andrew Lipke and Jaron Olevsky] are so talented, they take such great chances.”

Lee said that performing with an orchestra puts him in the position of “a passenger” surrounded by beautiful arrangements that he loves seeing an audience connect with. “It’s mindblowing! It’s not real. I’m still playing ‘Arms Of A Woman,’ but now I have all these colors and textures we have come to internalize in certain emotional ways.”

The concert happens this Thursday, July 20th, at The Mann Center and tickets are still available. With the Musicians on Call 5k Run a bit further on down the horizon, Lee reflected on his long-running support of that program as well. He shared a story about his first time playing for patients at the VA Hospital when a performance of Sister Rosetta Tharpe’s “Up Above My Head” got a paralyzed patient nodding his head and singing along.

“For me, that was like ‘right, this is the point of all music. To connect with each other.,” Lee recalls. “If you really disassemble the societal structures we have, monetization and all that, our connection with music and each other is much deeper than anything else. It peels those layers away and you’re with people in vulnerable situations, you’re in a vulnerable situation, nobody’s there to clap at you, nobody’s there to praise you. They’re just there to listen, and to feel. It brings you to the essence of it all, and that’s what I love about it, because that’s where I want to live. I want to live in these moments where we are connected as humans.”