Simply Three
Classical crossover string trio Simply Three consists of Latter-day Saints Nick Villalobos (bassist) and Zack Clark (cellist). The two met decades ago in the ninth grade while playing in the Arizona All-State Orchestra. The two performed in the Phoenix Youth Symphony together and ended up at Arizona State University after serving full-time missions for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The third member is Glen McDaniel (violinist). Two other violinists were part of the group before classically trained McDaniel entered joined the group in 2014. McDaniel met Villalobos in 2012 through a mutual friend. Two years later, McDaniel was on the road with another performing artist when Clark and Villalobos approached McDaniel about collaborating with them, and "the vibes of the trio felt solid from the start."LDS Living, “They’ve covered Adele, Imagine Dragons, and Queen. Now this string trio is putting a fiddle-rock twist on hymns”
“We didn’t want to take the traditional route of a classical musician, which is either to be in an orchestra or get a professorship somewhere,” Villalobos explains. “And we thought, ‘We like all these different kinds of music—we always liked rock music, rap, heavy metal, R&B, all that stuff. Why don’t we try to do this on our classical instruments?’”[1]
In 2014, the popularity of classical crossover music exploded. They saw the potential for classical musicians like themselves. Artists like Lindsey Stirling and The Piano Guys were also releasing Billboard-charting albums and mega-viral music videos, and Simply Three’s rise in classical crossover fame began to take off too.
Simply Three’s YouTube channel has 1.45 million followers, and their Spotify streams have surpassed their YouTube video views with dozens of songs on the platform boasting millions of listens.
