Gregory Alan Isakov tends Boulder County farm between gigs

As Gregory Alan Isakov smoked a hand-rolled cigarette on a warm day in July, he sat atop a wood bench outside his studio apartment discussing his hobby of portrait photography, sipping on tea and snapping photos with his vintage camera.

After he snuffed his cigarette in the terracotta ashtray, next to a bottle of Jameson and a Mason jar stuffed with wildflowers, he offered a tour of his modern music studio inside a converted old barn — the birthplace of Isakov’s folk ballads.

Starling Farms, a few miles east of Boulder, is Isakov’s urban, bohemian four-acre homestead that houses a collective of creatives. Musicians, artists, farmers, a couple of kids, a pack of short-haired sheep and a coop of chickens reside in various abodes on the land. The dwellings include houses, vintage trailers, a converted school bus and a remodeled barn.

The barn, rustic charm intact, also houses two modern studio apartments, decorated with antique instruments and a hanging terrarium of succulents. Past the small recreation room (where the ping-pong table lives) is the studio that’s decorated in rustic blond wood, vintage pianos, reel-to-reel recorders, instruments and amps. This is where Isakov runs his independent record label, Suitcase Town Music.

He said the sprawling Boulder County homestead is where he finds his peace. And although he loves being on the road to play his music, “My heart breaks a little bit whenever I leave the farm.”

He’s been in and out of his ranch this summer while he and his band embarked on an extensive tour following the June release of his new album, “Gregory Alan Isakov with the Colorado Symphony.”

The album, recorded at Denver’s Boettcher Concert Hall and his farm, features 11 tracks from previous albums (plus “Liars,” written by Ron Scott) that are amplified with the backing of a full symphony orchestra. The orchestra’s Scott O’Neil conducted nearly 70 classical musicians, playing alongside Isakov and his crew.

Isakov said the collaboration is a nice bridge to connect listeners who are unfamiliar with it to the art of the symphony.

Isakov’s integrity

“I try to have integrity in everything I do,” Isakov said in a phone interview in June, as he’s been tending his farm for 12 years. “And I think I share with a lot of people to try and really put your whole self into what you’re doing.”

Isakov was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, grew up in Philadelphia, got his horticulture degree from Naropa University in Boulder and now calls Boulder home. While at Naropa, he worked on a farm in Scotland for a year, so when breaking from music he indulges his other passion of farming by tending to his plot of land. At Starling Farms, Isakov harvests seeds, heirloom vegetables, wildflowers, herbs and a small bit of cannabis.

When he’s tending to his fans on tour, Isakov has plenty of farmstead assistance. The four acres houses around 10 residents, give or take — it depends on who’s on tour (one of the vintage trailer residents is a sound engineer who tours with Nathaniel Rateliff, he said).

And when he’s home, he strings his poetry together (with Post-Its, no less) to timelessly evoke the senses and provoke emotion with his folk. He’s an artist who takes great pride in his songwriting.

“For me, a song has a purpose,” Isakov said in the phone interview. “And either it does it or it doesn’t do it. I guess I won’t put something out if it doesn’t either take somebody somewhere or it doesn’t make you feel something. I’m pretty discerning about that.”

Isakov said he tries to make his songs come “alive.” And with his collaboration with the Colorado Symphony, they got quite the boost. Although most of the songs are reworked originals from his previous albums, the symphony takes them to new heights.

“The feeling that happens when so many people’s craft make it into these songs,” he said. “I’m so blown away.”

The tracks soar with beautiful arrangements created by DeVotchKa’s Tom Hagerman (who went to music school at the University of Colorado) and Jay Clifford of Jump Little Children.

“The scope of their minds amazes me,” Isakov said of Hagerman and Clifford. “How they’re able to work in every instrument in the symphony and still leave space for the songs, the lyrics. They’re so amazing.”

With current musical genre trends veering largely to synthetic and digital, the orchestral instruments that Isakov coupled with his folk songs is refreshing. He described working with the CSO as “indescribable.”

“It’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever been able to do,” Isakov said. “We just kind of hobble out on stage and there’s all these amazing musicians behind us and we’re turning our amps down.”

Isakov and crew — Jeb Bows (fiddle), Philip Parker (cello), Steve Varney (electric guitar/banjo), John Grigsby (upright bass) and Max Barcelow (drums) — is on tour with the Ghost Orchestra (eight symphony members) but also has been performing big arrangements along the way, such as with the Atlanta Symphony to the Philadelphia Symphony to the 80-person National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C.

He has a Sept. 4 show at Red Rocks Amphitheatre, featuring the Ghost Orchestra and special guests Ani DiFranco and Shook Twins, and then plans to tour overseas through the end of the year. He said he’s working on a new LP, which is due to be released next year. (“We’ve been trying out these new songs on the road just to give them the road test,” he said.)

“I have new curiosities that I’m always after with and I don’t know if I’m getting better,” he said, laughing. “I guess that’s just the journey of the artist. You’re always trying to uncover a new thing, or are after new things. Hopefully I’m more efficient at it now than I used to be. Maybe my trash can is smaller than it used to be.”

Christy Fantz: 303-473-1107, fantz@coloradodaily.com or twitter.com/fantzypants