Ben Folds Joing SBSO For South Bend Birthday Performance
South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg announced Monday that celebrated pianist and singer-songwriter Ben Folds will perform with the South Bend Symphony Orchestra and Maestro Tsung Yeh as part of the SB150 Birthday Weekend.
Folds, who was the lead singer of the alternative rock trio Ben Folds Five, will headline the May 23 concert to be held at an outdoor main stage at Century Center, 120 South Saint Joseph St.
“We are thrilled to have Ben Folds headlining the city’s 150th birthday party concert,” Mayor Pete Buttigieg says. “His performance will be a highlight as our community celebrates South Bend’s past, present, and future.”
Folds has announced details of a landmark new album slated for digital release in the spring with a vinyl release to follow in the late summer.
The upcoming album will showcase new pop songs by the multi-platinum-selling singer/songwriter/producer recorded and arranged in collaboration with yMusic – a NYC-based sextet, along with the debut recording of Folds’ critically acclaimed “Concerto For Piano and Orchestra.” Recorded in just under two weeks in New York, Los Angeles, and Folds’ own historic RCA Studio A in Nashville, the album is marked by its forward-thinking studio craft and creative spontaneity.
“I don’t recall ever being quite so excited about an album I’m making,” Folds says. “I’ll let you decide if that’s a good thing or not. It’s just that we don’t often get to make a record that we’ve never heard before. The arrangements you will hear on this record are straight up rock – not ornamentation. The odd instrumentation – piano, cello, viola, violin, flute/piccolo/alto flute, trumpet/French horn, and clarinet/bass clarinet, with no bass and more often than not, no drums – is yielding something that I can’t wait to release. It’s a pop record, if that’s what you call what I write.”
Having spent much of 2013 performing his “Concerto For Piano and Orchestra” with symphony orchestras around the world, Folds was eager to continue exploring new sonic landscapes but with the feeling and flexibility of playing with a “band.”
Tickets for Folds’ performance in South Bend may be purchased for $10 and $25 at the Morris Performing Arts Center box office Monday-Friday from 10 am to 5 pm, (574) 235-9190 or (800) 537-6415, or online at morriscenter.ticketforce.com.