The Endless Curiosity of Chris Thile

The 40-year-old mandolinist has found inspiration in groups, and as the host of “Live From Here.” “Laysongs” is his most directly personal work yet.

At his first in-person performance before a New York audience in over a year, the mandolinist Chris Thile spent a lot of time with his instrument on his lap, listening. Half-encircled by a sizable but well-spaced-out crowd at the East River Park Amphitheater last month, Thile welcomed an assortment of New York-based artists to the stage. Some, like the members of the pop-soul band Lake Street Dive, were familiar collaborators; others, like the poet Carl Hancock Rux, he’d just met that day. He introduced them all with the kindly salesman flair of a consummate radio host — which in fact he was, until the pandemic put the kibosh on his syndicated variety show, “Live From Here,” the successor to “Prairie Home Companion,” which Thile had taken over from Garrison Keillor in 2016. Then, sitting by the side of the stage for much of the show, he took part as a listener as much as a performer.