Ben Folds is widely regarded as one of the major music influencers of our generation.
The Emmy-nominated singer-songwriter-composer has created an enormous body of genre-bending music that includes pop albums with Ben Folds Five, multiple solo albums, and numerous collaborative records.
For the past three decades, he’s toured as a pop artist, while also performing with some of the world’s greatest symphony orchestras.
A New York Times Best Selling author and podcast host, Ben also composes for film, tv and theatre, guest stars in films and TV, and serves as the Artistic Advisor to the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC.
A longtime advocate for arts and music education funding, Ben launched a music education charitable initiative in his native state of North Carolina entitled “Keys For Keys,” which provides funds and keyboards to existing nonprofits that provide free or affordable music lessons to interested school-age children. On the national level, he’s active as a member of Americans For The Arts and the Arts Action Fund.
Lindsey Kraft
Lindsey Kraft is a multi-faceted artist – actress, singer, and composer. You may recognize her from various TV roles including Netflix’s Grace and Frankie, HBO’s Getting On and most recently Netflix’s Obliterated.
She continues as the opening act for Ben Folds, where she’ll be performing her brand of theatrical pop songs including songs from her musical, “love, me,” a one-woman show workshopped recently in LA for a LIVE album. During an opening performance for Ben at the Kennedy Center in 2023, she received a glowing review by DC Music Review which wrote that the audience “was treated and transfixed by the performance of Lindsey Kraft. Within the first few moments of her piece, concertgoers realized how perfect the pairing was. A burgeoning newcomer to musical performances, Kraft, in addition to her brilliant piano playing and songs, masterfully interacted with and entertained the audience with her witty and sincere songs.”
She characterizes her songs as deeply personal, funny, and sad, her sound inspired by Carly Simon, Carole King, Billy Joel, Bette Midler, Randy Newman, and Broadway (but like, only the good shows).
Music Director Peter Oundjian continues his tradition of ending the season with glorious music by Mahler. The composer built his Fourth Symphony around his own song “The Heavenly Life,” which borrows text from a Bavarian folk poem. “The angelic voices gladden our senses,” the poem proclaims, “so that everything awakens for joy.” Mahler’s sunniest symphony invokes bells, harp, and woodwinds; in keeping with the lightness of the work, Mahler insisted the soprano perform “with childlike, cheerful expression;” soprano Karina Gauvin joins the Festival in this role. This final concert of the season includes Ravel’s colorful twist on the Shéhérazade tales — again featuring Gauvin’s “glowing, flexible tone” (Opera News) — and the overture to Strauss’ most famous and farcical operetta, Die Fledermaus.
Augustin Hadelich, one of the greatest violinists of all time, returns to perform Tchaikovsky’s unparalleled Violin Concerto. The deeply patriotic Dvořák wished to use his music to recognize the struggle and oppression of his fellow Czechs; he wrote of this urgent Seventh Symphony, “What is in my mind is Love, God, and my Fatherland.” Kevin Puts’ Two Mountain Scenes, composed “with the impressive backdrop of the Rocky Mountains in mind” and beginning with “the sonic illusion of a single trumpet reverberating across the valley,” opens this wondrous program.
Artists:
Peter Oundjian, conductor
Augustin Hadelich, violin
Program:
Kevin Puts, Two Mountain Scenes (2007)
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 35
Augustin Hadelich, one of the greatest violinists of all time, returns to perform Tchaikovsky’s unparalleled Violin Concerto. The deeply patriotic Dvořák wished to use his music to recognize the struggle and oppression of his fellow Czechs; he wrote of this urgent Seventh Symphony, “What is in my mind is Love, God, and my Fatherland.” Kevin Puts’ Two Mountain Scenes, composed “with the impressive backdrop of the Rocky Mountains in mind” and beginning with “the sonic illusion of a single trumpet reverberating across the valley,” opens this wondrous program.
Artists:
Peter Oundjian, conductor
Augustin Hadelich, violin
Program:
Kevin Puts, Two Mountain Scenes (2007)
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 35
“Yes, playing string quartets is our job, and yes it is hard work, but we mostly do it for pleasure, like we always did,” says the Danish String Quartet, a highly sought-after ensemble of energetic musicians who met each other at music camp as teenagers. The Quartet returns to the Robert Mann Chamber Music Series with a varied program including work by Haydn, Stravinsky, and Mozart, as well as Shostakovich’s profound String Quartet No. 3 and three Irish folk melodies by Celtic harper and composer Turlough O’Carolan.
Artists:
Danish String Quartet
Program:
Joseph Haydn, String Quartet, Op. 77, No. 2: III, Andante
Igor Stravinsky, Three Pieces for String Quartet
Turlough O’Carolan, Three Melodies
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Divertimento in F Major, K. 138
Dmitri Shostakovich, String Quartet No. 3 in F Major, Op. 73
