Annie Clark, who performs as St. Vincent, is an acclaimed singer-songwriter and guitar goddess, but when she comes to the Hollywood Bowl on her Live With Orchestra Tour, she won’t spend a lot of time with a guitar in her hands.
And that’s just fine, she says.
“I love it. This is my Judy Garland dream,” Clark says of the current orchestral tour. “I think doing these shows, I get to shine as a singer and probably be more free with singing than I would be if I had a guitar on the whole time.
“Kind of going in that great tradition,” she says in reference to all the pop vocalists who’ve performed with orchestra as Garland often had, including one memorable performance during a downpour at the Hollywood Bowl in September 1961. “I just felt like we know what my music sounds like with the guitar.
“So if we farm out these things that are usually guitar parts to other instruments, when the guitar is there, it really just kind of gets to shine and be a moment instead of just being a foregone conclusion.
“But yeah, I get to sing, which I love doing, and I don’t know that people think of me as a singer,” Clark continues. “I think it turns out that I am.”
She laughs at that and then explains how it took time over seven St. Vincent albums since 2007 to feel she was using her voice to its full capabilities.
“I think there is an aspect to those early records where my mouth was almost like your eyes are too big for your stomach,” Clark says. “There are melodies written in strange keys or keys that don’t necessarily suit my voice.
“They’re really ornate melodies,” she says. “And I think I just have a stronger instrument now to sing all that stuff. So it’s nice to approach it as a better singer.”
In an interview edited for length and clarity, Clark talked about the origins of the Live With Orchestra Tour, her delight at how these new arrangements change and expand the original versions, and more.
Q: Hi, Annie! Are you in smoky New York City after the Canadian wildfires today?
A: No, although I did see that. I’m in sinkhole Los Angeles.
Q: Oh, do you live in L.A. now? I forgot if you’ve relocated.
A: I’m in both. I like to think that I’m still a New Yorker, but I spend most of my time in Los Angeles.
Q: Well, let me start by asking you how the idea of doing this orchestral tour came about.
A: Sure, BBC does this really cool thing called BBC Proms, where they take pop artists and do a night of orchestral music with them. And it came to be because Rachel Eckroth, who I’ve been playing with in the live band for about five years, is friends with Jules Buckley, who’s a great conductor and has his own orchestra.
They said, ‘Hey, what if we did this BBC Proms thing?’ They brought it to me, and it was in the works for a couple of years. It wasn’t quite the right time a couple of years ago, but we got it going and it debuted in London last fall.
And it was such a great experience that pretty much the second I got off stage [at the Royal Albert Hall] I was like, “Can we do more of these? Let’s just go.” And here we are.
[St. Vincent’s “Live in London: BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall” was released in March 2026.]
Q: So did Jules do the arrangements? Rachel?
A: Jules did some of the arrangements, and Rachel did some, and then some people in the Jules Buckley Orchestra orbit did some other arrangements. So it’s all within the same kind of family, I suppose.
Q: And for you as the songwriter, how do you work with arrangers? Just hand it to them and let them go? Or you’re involved at every point?
A: Some of – a lot of – the material in this batch of songs is kind of orchestral to begin with. I would look at a song like “Marrow” and go, like, that’s an homage to [the Stravinsky ballet] “Petrushka.” There’s “Black Rainbow,” which I would say is sort of French in its sort of flouncy-ness at times.
It was a song selection like, “OK, what kind of story do you want to tell in the set?” And some of my early material is influenced by orchestral music, so it’s like, “Might as well dust those off, they haven’t been played in a while.” Kind of like, “OK, which songs are going to be suited to this in an orchestral treatment?”
And then I just kind of said go for it. I didn’t come in and dictate what they ought to do. They ran with it and would send it to me for a review. Sometimes I would have a lot of notes like, “Oh, we should double this bass part,” or, “Move this from English horn to, I don’t know, clarinet.” [She laughs]
And then sometimes I would have no notes and be – I mean, I was pleasantly surprised in every case, but sometimes I would just go, “Yeah, go with God, this one sounds incredible.”
Q: What were your early orchestral influences? Did you play in school bands or orchestras as a kid?
A: Yeah, I mean, my first instrument was violin, but I knew that wasn’t going to be for me when I was, like, learning Peter Frampton songs on the violin. [She laughs] I was like, OK, I should be playing the instrument I actually want to play, and switched to guitar. But then, it’s a little bit different, but I listened to a whole lot of jazz. I played in jazz band, jazz big bands.
And it wasn’t until I was probably in my early 20s that I started checking out Stravinsky and Debussy and Erik Satie. Then I was kind of in a scene of people in Brooklyn, playing in Sufjan Stevens’ band, and playing with the guys from the National, where they had a real fluency in orchestral music.
They had real degrees and stuff like that. They had real education. So I think I just sort of learned a lot of things by osmosis.
Q: You’ve got 50 or 60 musicians around you, and you’re playing mostly classical music venues on this tour. How’s it feel in those spaces compared to the usual clubs, theaters, and arenas?
A: I think there’s a reverence to those places, and I certainly have a reverence for the musicianship of every single orchestra. To go in, and I mean, you have one rehearsal with them and then you play a show, it’s like speed dating or something. You have one rehearsal to get them excited, get them on your side.
It always tickles me when you can tell that they’re enjoying it. Because I know it’s not Mahler, I know it’s not their usual programming, but it is important to me that the musicians have a good time just for the vibe.
There’s a reverence, but then also, in a former life, I was a cabaret singer. So it’s nice to start incredibly reverent and then get it kind of – I would say like increasingly high highs and low lows. You get increasingly unmoored as the show goes on.
Q: Can you give an example or two of a song and how its changed? And what you like about the changes?
A: Yeah, I would say a song like “Smoking Section.” Rachel Eckroth did that arrangement, and I love it so much. It starts out in a kind of ELO synth arpeggiated fever dream, and then it comes down to Earth. I mean the subject matter is so kind of bleak and desperate but also beautiful. It just takes us there.
I think another one that’s maybe even a better example would be “Los Ageless,” where Rachel did that arrangement as well. On the recorded version of that song, on the “Masseduction” album, it has an almost electro ZZ Top sort of vibe, and it’s a little bit icy.
But the arrangement that Rachel did goes so romantic and so to the heart of the song, and really, to me, it gets rid of any of the coldness and just takes you right to the heart of it. You know, ‘How could anybody have you and lose you and not lose their mind,” whatever the lyric is. It’s just like a torch song.
I love her arrangement. I don’t get to listen to it because I’m also singing, but I have listened to the instrumental of it. And I mean, it’s jagged and then there’s a little burst of an atonal thing, and then it’s so romantic and sweet, and then there’s like a little jazz moment. I just love that arrangement.
Q: You know, ZZ Top is three days after you at the Bowl, you could come back and do “Los Ageless” with them.
A: Are they really? I heard that their bass tech is now their bass player because, I forget his name, but their bass player died. Was he a Gibbons?
Q: I don’t think so.
A: There’s Frank Beard, there’s Billy Gibbons, and then I’m spacing out the other one.
Q: You’re from Texas, you should really know this.
A: I really should know this. [She laughs] Oh, Dusty Hill. Dusty Hill passed away. There it is.
Q: So, as far as your regular band, are they with you and the orchestra on stage?
A: Yeah. I’m traveling with Jules, the incredible conductor, and then also four musicians. Rachel is on keys and I’ve got a great drummer named John Hadfield, who plays with Rachel a lot. Robert Ellis, who played in this last “All Born Screaming” band on guitar.
And Allee Futterer on bass. Chappell Roan has graciously let her – no, just kidding, she’s played with Chappell a lot. She’s a ripper. She’s great. So we have kind of a core band that we roll in.
Q: As far as rock artists doing orchestral tours or albums, are there any in particular that you’ve been moved by when you’ve seen or heard them? I’ve seen some where you can barely hear the orchestra over the band.
A: Yeah, I’m sure, depending on the music, some of it works better. And arrangements are obviously very crucial. Beck has done an incredible job, but then you also go, well, that makes a whole lot of sense, because you could play “Sea Change” start to finish with [an orchestra]. There are incredible arrangements already.
I didn’t personally see this show, but I say Portishead at Roseland [“Roseland NYC Live”] is one of the great live orchestra with band recordings.
Q: So after this tour, what’s next for you? Are there any projects you can talk about now?
A: There’s nothing I can talk about too specifically, but I’m working on a collaboration record that I’m really, really, really excited about, that I’ve wanted to do for a long time.
I got to have a tiny part in a Richard Foreman opera [“What To Wear” at Brooklyn Academy of Music] in January, which was really thrilling and eye-opening. That music rocked me, rocked my world.
I think in general, I want to make things that feel, even if they’re kind of more ephemeral, really exciting, like working in the world of theater, of opera.
Yeah, making art for art’s sake.
Q: Well, thank you for your time today, Annie. Stay away from the sinkhole.
A: I’m driving to the heart of the sinkhole, so wish me luck. This may be the last anyone hears from me.
Q: Your final interview!
A: I hope not. [Laughter]