Erin Costelo with the Blue Engine String Quartet

Local songstress Erin Costelo steps out of her jazzy piano pop and into the arrangement of orchestral music this Saturday to play a show with the Blue Engine String Quartet. "I have a bit of a background in classical music, and I've always loved string quartets, and it was a chance for me to combine my interest in composition and arranging, with my own songs, too," says Costelo. The singer wrote string parts for songs off her latest album, Fire & Fuss, as well as songs off her earlier EP The Trouble and the Truth. While Costelo expected challenges in writing an entirely different style of music for something she'd already produced, the toughest parts weren't what she expected. "I thought that it was going to be a lot easier for me to break out of the songs and experiment a little bit more, and that has been the challenge," she admits. "But the arrangement of stuff has been fun. It's been kind of like going into a store and you have every possible outfit to try on, and you can make a whole bunch of strange outfits out of it." See what outfits Costelo chose at the Sir James Dunn Theatre, and if you're a fan of her music turning orchestral keep an eye out for her Symphony Nova Scotia show next season.–Holly Gordon