Jerry Garcia Symphonic Celebration at the Mann: Truckin' it classical

When guitar god Warren Haynes executes the Jerry Garcia Symphonic Celebration with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra at the Mann Center on Tuesday, he's not just honoring the late Grateful Dead guitarist.

Performing with the orchestra, Haynes will inaugurate this summer's crossover-classical season at the Mann. That classical music hybrid is one of the performing arts center's most successful on-going events, pairing various symphonies (including the Philadelphia Orchestra) with performers outside the orchestral norm.

And few pairings are as unusual as having Haynes play in front of violins and French horns.

He's renowned for inventively gnarly and introspective jams with his soulful, eponymous solo band and with the gritty Gov't Mule, a dirty but razor-sharp sound inspired by the blues-based Kings (unrelated guitarists Albert, B.B., and Freddie).

"My particular burn combines every influence I've had, filtered through my personality," Haynes says by phone, a hint of his North Carolina accent peeking through.

Though he adores the blues, his heart has been with the Grateful Dead, the psychedelic band with whose members he has played individually (Phil Lesh & Friends) and collectively (the Dead). This August, Gov't Mule plays Scranton's Peach Music Festival with the Allman Brothers (another band Haynes regularly jams with) and Dead founding member Bob Weir's RatDog.

Haynes is friendly with those musicians, but it goes beyond camaraderie and fandom. "I love that they're still into experimenting. One of the reasons they do so many projects is that they don't want to rest on their laurels."

When he got the call from Jerry Garcia's estate about performing in symphonic shows dedicated to the Grateful Dead and Garcia's solo works, Haynes was honored. He's quick to say that he's no expert on orchestral music, but knows what he likes (the avant-garde of Stravinsky and Stockhausen, "the heavier, weirder stuff that influenced [Frank] Zappa") and was anxious to sink his teeth into the power, dynamics, and range a full orchestra offers: "Great symphonies go from a whisper to a scream and everywhere in-between."

Knowing he'd have the 90-piece Pittsburgh Symphony as his backing band, Haynes, with the help of Lesh, sought arrangers, found songs of the Dead and Garcia that lent themselves to the sort of angular orchestration he favored ("they needed to become bigger rather than just sound like strings and horns attached to a pop song"), and worked to include windows of improvisation into the score. "We even went back and orchestrated some of Jerry's improvisations, so the effect is this layered wall of sound."

Haynes wanted to honor the spirit of Garcia and the Dead's music the way it was written and played. He also wanted to honor the Dead tradition of not revealing his set list before show time. "I won't know or decide until right before the gig. We worked up a lot of songs to go around."

What Haynes will discuss is the axe he'll use during these shows: "Wolf," Garcia's custom guitar built by Doug Irwin and given to him in 1973. Haynes will play more quietly and cleanly at the Mann than he does with Gov't Mule ("you have to respect the orchestra") and says "Wolf" is perfect for such tranquility.

"There's also this philosophical thing that it's imposing just holding 'Wolf,' you know, a guitar he created so much music with," Haynes says. "Physically, it's just a beautiful-playing and -sounding instrument with great action. Automatically, you sound more like Jerry with every lick."

Cathy Cahill, president and chief executive officer of the Mann, is only just starting to learn about the Dead. "I can't say I was a devotee as a youngster," she says, stifling a laugh. "I got my undergraduate degree in cello performance at Temple University, so hard-core classical is in my blood. But I'm certainly more in tune with the Dead now."

When it comes to the business of the Mann, Cahill's job is to appeal to every audience. Keeping in mind the music she loves, Cahill has pursued a quasi-classical strategy pairing various symphony orchestras with a diverse array of performers.

"Crossover-classical" is what Cahill calls it, and her goals are straightforward: expand the audience for classical music by any means necessary. "That we're a single-ticket house in a nonsubscription environment allows us flexibility to do such programming," she says.

Along with pairing pop types Elvis Costello and the Decemberists with the Mann Festival Orchestra in 2007, the expansion of Cahill's hybrid-classical program since 2010 have included the BBC's Planet Earth television series (with aerial images timed to an original orchestral score) and Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda fantasy game set to strings. "Seven thousand people came dressed in Zelda costumes," Cahill says. "It was like a rock show."

Zelda returns to match wits with the Philadelphia Orchestra (July 25). The rest of 2013's crossover-classical program includes "Pixar in Concert" with clips of cartoons such as Brave paired with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (Thursday); "Woof-Fest" with the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia and narrator F. Murray Abraham for dog audiences (Aug. 24); and "Symphonic Sports-tacular," with footage of Philly's illustrious sports history and radio guy Merrill Reese narrating Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 as if calling a no-hitter (July 24).

"It's all about outreach," Cahill says. "Something for everyone."