It’s been about a decade since string wizard Mike Marshall left the East Bay for Germany, but you can still hear traces of him everywhere.
If you listen to public radio, you probably know his mandolin work from the “Car Talk” theme (Dave Grisman’s “ Dawggy Mountain Breakdown”) and KQED’s “Forum,” where his tune “Peter Pan” from his “Woodwork” album with fiddler Darol Anger is heard multiple times every weekday.
A dazzling performer on mandolin and guitar, Marshall moved to the Bay Area in the late 1970s and took a vanguard role in the string revolution led by Grisman, who crossbred bluegrass with various jazz styles and any other acoustic music that caught his ear. It was Grisman who introduced him to the ebullient Brazilian style known as choro, sparking Marshall’s passion for the century-old tradition and his pioneering American band Choro Famoso.
All of these influences are evident on his new album with his wife, German classical mandolin master Caterina Lichtenberg, “Third Journey” (Adventure Music), a project that encompasses bluegrass and Bach, choro patriarch Jacob do Bandolim and Henry Purcell’s Baroque gem “Ground in C Minor.”
Holding the world’s only faculty position for classical mandolin at the Cologne Music Conservatory, Lichtenberg has collaborated with many top ensembles, including San Francisco’s New Century Chamber Orchestra under Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg. She’s also toured and recorded extensively with German guitarist Mirko Schrader, but she’s done her widest musical exploring with Marshall, who recently joined her on faculty at the conservatory. The couple returns on Aug. 26 to Berkeley’s Freight & Salvage, five years after their last performance at the venue.
Details: 7 p.m.; $20-$24; 510-644-2020, www.thefreight.org.