Tucson Symphony Orchestra goes country

Tucson Symphony Orchestra has hosted a handful of rock and pop acts, Great American Songbook singers and Tucson’s own Bill Ganz Western Band, but this weekend the orchestra is going Nashville.

The TSO will provide an “incredibly beautiful wall of sound” for Nashville country singers Rachel Potter and Patrick Thomas, stars of the traveling country tribute symphony show “Country Legends.”

“It makes it very grand,” Potter said last week, speaking from Nashville. “Like the song ‘Crazy’ by Patsy Cline. It’s all the same melody that you’re used to but it just fleshes it out and makes it this incredibly beautiful wall of sound accompanying this classic song.”

Potter and Thomas will perform “Country Legends” twice — on Saturday, Feb. 11, and Sunday, Feb. 12 — as part of the TSO’s SuperPops series.

We caught up with 32-year-old Potter last week on the phone.

First things first: Who’s Rachel Potter? The Nashville, Tennessee, country singer-songwriter had a run on New York’s Great White Way (“Evita” and “The Addams Family”) and was Glinda’s understudy and part of the ensemble cast for the national tour of “Wicked,” including a stop in Tucson. In 2013, she left New York for Nashville and had a solid run on Season 3 of Simon Cowell’s “X Factor”; she finished 11th. Potter, the mother of a 7-week-old son, Jude, fronts the Nashville country trio Steel Union, which just released an EP. (You can get a copy at this weekend’s TSO concerts.)

About “Country Legends”: A greatest hits country music parade that digs deep in the trove, from Hank Williams and Patsy Cline to Garth Brooks and Carrie Underwood.

“I get a chance to do some of my old favorites: ‘Crazy’ by Patsy Cline, ‘Harper Valley PTA,’ ‘Coal Miner’s Daughter,’” Potter said. “We do some Hank Williams. We do some Dolly Parton, Kenny Rogers. We do a whole Johnny Cash medley. … It’s really fun and the audience loves it. It’s fun to hear their reaction when we start to play one they haven’t heard in a long, long time. It brings back memories for people.”

Her favorite song on the program: “I actually love doing ‘Breathe’ by Faith Hill. Patrick plays the guitar on that one. That one in particular, I think, sounds so cool with the orchestra. It’s huge with the string section and the arrangement is so beautiful.”