By Robert Duguay

Audiences will hear the new musical direction violinist Lindsey Stirling and her band have taken when they perform at Fenway’s MGM Music Hall.

Artists often show different sides of themselves throughout their careers. Creative visions change, often driven by developing tastes and a longing for new directions. Violin savant Lindsey Stirling, in her album Duality released by Concord Records earlier this year, expanded the envelope in an assortment of ways. As Riff Magazine puts it, the record is “less about opposing forces — queens/fairies, serenity/surrender, purpose/untamed — and more about the spaces between them. It’s a collection of moments that work collectively to create a bit of what you might think of as world building. That is, they introduce us to settings and landscapes that, over the 40 minutes this album spans, will be tested, modified and revisited… What Stirling has created is less a series of episodic pieces and more a volley of scenes that build off one another.” Audiences will hear this “world building” live when Stirling and her band perform at Fenway’s MGM Music Hall at Fenway on August 13. The show starts at 7 p.m.; Canadian indie pop act Walk Off The Earth, who also guested on Stirling’s album, will kick off the evening.

I asked Stirling about what influenced the making of Duality and why her various violins go by different names.

The Arts Fuse: Duality has you expanding various artistic boundaries, embracing a number of styles, including Celtic music. How did you go about including music from other parts of the world into your sound?

Lindsey Stirling: I love lots of different types of music and I very much love Celtic music. I always have and there’s been little hints of it in my music in the past. But  the reason you hear a lot more of those influences is because of the theme. It’s about expressing different sides of myself and honoring different parts of myself, not only emotionally but also musically. The goal in the beginning was to hone in on one sound and make this album super cohesive. Instead, I really let myself go wild instead of trying to pull it back. For example, with “Evil Twin” it sounds very Middle Eastern with the key signature and the harmonics that are used, the beats and the rhythms.

Rather than trying to pull that track back to fit the rest of the album, I decided to push more into it. It was a really fun exercise to do the opposite of what I’ve done in the past, where I went for cohesion. Here I decided that it was OK to make a diverse album. I realized that I didn’t need to have a specific sound, and I enjoyed giving myself that freedom as the album came together.

AF: The album was a very collaborative effort. You worked with a wide array of producers, including Graham Muron & Lucky West along with having the likes of Royal & The Serpent. Walk Off The Earth was involved in a couple songs. Was this something that you had in mind from the beginning?

Stirling: It just kind of happened. Honestly, I was waiting to write material for a long time, and then I started to find the people who were sparking my creativity. I worked with a number of different producers; I loved working with Graham and Lucky. Finding the right artist to feature in the right song is incredibly difficult, and I’m incredibly happy with how it all came out. Royal & The Serpent and Walk Off The Earth ended up being featured vocalists — I couldn’t imagine a better fit for those two songs.

Violinist Lindsey Stirling. Photo: Heather Koepp

AF: Each violin you own has a name. You have named an instrument after David Bowie. How do you come up with the names? Do they just come to you after you pick up a particular violin? Or do you do a lot of brainstorming?

Stirling: It depends. Sometimes it just happens, especially when I’m working with my violin tech. We name them not only because it gives each of them a personality —  I enjoy personifying things — but it also makes things a lot easier. Asking, “Hey, can you hand me ‘Lady’?” instead of asking for the wooden one makes it convenient for my violin tech while we are on tour. It is also easier to tell the guys which songs go with which violin. They all learn the names of the violins. It’s funny but sometimes naming comes super naturally. For example, “David Bowie” is a crossbow violin, so its name is an amusing pun while David Bowie was also an icon. So it was like, “Oh yeah, I have ‘David Bowie’, my crossbow violin”.

AF: Your performances are often entertaining theatrical spectacles. What thoughts do you have about coming back to Boston to take the stage at the MGM Music Hall at Fenway?

Stirling: I’m really excited. We’ve played there before. It’s really cool that it’s in Fenway Park. I’ve had a chance to see a Red Sox game before we performed. Boston is such a cool city, so I’m really excited to go back.

Rob Duguay is an arts & entertainment journalist based in Providence, who is originally from Shelton, CT. Outside of the Arts Fuse, he has also written for DigBoston, Aquarian Weekly, Providence Journal, Newport Daily News, Worcester Magazine, New Noise Magazine, Manchester Ink Link, and numerous other publications. While covering mostly music, he has also written about film, TV, comedy, theater, visual art, food, drink, sports, and cannabis.