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<\/p>\nBen Folds is playing dates with orchestras, and he\u2019s scheduling performances that will feature him alone onstage with a piano. Those solo dates showcase just one of the many dimensions of Folds\u2019 artistry.<\/p>\n
Ben Folds came to prominence as the pianist, singer and songwriter who introduced the \u201cpunk rock for sissies\u201d (his self-effacing term) of Ben Folds Five to alt-rock audiences in the 1990s and beyond. Hits like \u201cThe Battle of Who Could Care Less,\u201d \u201cSong for the Dumped,\u201d \u201cArmy\u201d and the heart-rending real-life balladry of \u201cBrick\u201d earned his guitar-less band a legion of fans in an era dominated by grunge. Folds\u2019 subsequent work as a solo artist has elevated his status even further; he has since expanded into scoring for film and television, producing for (and collaborating with) other artists, writing an autobiography, doing a bit of acting, and mounting tours that emphasize an interactive quality.<\/p>\n
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That lengthy list of resourceful pursuits is seemingly not enough for the creatively peripatetic Winston-Salem, N.C. native. In 2019 Folds became Artistic Advisor to the National Symphony Orchestra at Washington D.C.\u2019s Kennedy Center. (He resigned in protest when Donald Trump\u2019s proxies seized control of the Kennedy Center.) His most recent album, Ben Folds Live with the National Symphony Orchestra<\/i> was released on July 4. Folds\u2019 current run of tour dates features that mix of solo and orchestral performances, as well as a New York City appearance in connection with a TV special for which he wrote and recorded the music.<\/p>\n
With its varying flavors of engagements, Folds\u2019 schedule could disorient even the hardiest touring artist. He laughs at the suggestion. \u201cIt was more confusing when I was playing solo shows, orchestra shows, and two separate band versions on tours, and none of them were advertised what [they] were going to be,\u201d he says. \u201cI got through that, so this seems far less \u2018schizo.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
No matter what kind of performance he undertakes, Folds believes there\u2019s a foundational value at work. \u201cWhat I always have to tap into is the story of the song,\u201d he explains. \u201cIf you tell me I can only use four notes on the piano, I\u2019ve still got to get the point across. And I think that the melodies and stories are solid; for the most part, they can do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Playful interactivity is often part and parcel of a Ben Folds performance. On the concert documented on 2013\u2019s Ben Folds Live<\/i>, he leads the audience in vocalizations of the spirited horn sections on \u201cArmy.\u201d On his 2017 tour, Folds encouraged concertgoers to write song requests on paper, fold them into airplanes and throw them toward the stage.<\/p>\n
Even Folds\u2019 set list is subject to in-the-moment creative inspiration. \u201cI have a set list sitting in front of me that\u2019s a \u2018shape,\u2019\u201d he says. \u201cBecause I think the shape feels right to me.\u201d Folds cites a show in Groton, Mass. the night before our conversation. \u201cLast night I retained the shape, [but] almost none of the songs were the same set list.\u201d<\/p>\n
Folds draws from his collective repertoire of nine studio albums, playing a song to suit each moment. \u201cWe\u2019re all sitting here for an hour and a half,\u201d he explains. \u201cSo while everyone\u2019s very quiet and sensitized, I\u2019m going to do the most nuanced stuff.\u201d Then he\u2019ll pull out some of his more story-based material. \u201cAnd at the very end, it\u2019s just going to be a \u2018rock block,\u2019 because now people are kind of numb,\u201d he says with a smile. \u201cTheir faces have vibrated for an hour and 10 minutes, so it\u2019s time to turn up the volume.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stylistic versatility is a through-line that connects all the pieces of Ben Folds\u2019 body of work. His wide-screen approach to his art goes a long way toward explaining why Folds is carrying on a musical tradition that began nearly a year before he was born.<\/p>\n
With the December 1965 broadcast of A Charlie Brown Christmas<\/i>, San Francisco-based jazz pianist Vince Guaraldi went nearly overnight from a moderately successful (if critically-acclaimed) career as a recording artist to a pop sensation. A generation of kids \u2013 and more than a few adults \u2013 grew up hearing and loving Guaraldi\u2019s evocative work for that and subsequent Peanuts<\/i> specials; few even realized they were listening to jazz.<\/p>\n
Folds followed on from Guaraldi in 2022 when he composed the music for Apple TV+\u2019s It\u2019s the Small Things, Charlie Brown<\/i>. Now in 2025, Folds returns to the piano for Snoopy Presents: A Summer Musical<\/i>. \u201cI don\u2019t think there\u2019s a piano player around who was a kid when that music came out who doesn\u2019t associate part of the soul of the piano with Peanuts<\/i> and Vince Guaraldi,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Folds observes that the combination of Guaraldi\u2019s melancholy piano and cartoonist Charles M. Schulz\u2019s worldview for kids created a \u201cquiet zone\u201d for kids of the era. And that was important in a time when the war in Vietnam and the assassinations of JFK, RFK, MLK and Malcolm X made the world a very loud place. \u201cYou needed quiet, and you needed reflection,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
And with the music of Ben Folds, listeners get all that and<\/i> an opportunity to rock out.<\/p>\n
NOTE:<\/strong> Stay tuned for another Ben Folds interview, focusing on his\u00a0orchestral <\/em>work, coming to Musoscribe in October.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ben Folds is playing dates with orchestras, and he\u2019s scheduling performances that will feature him alone onstage with a piano. Those solo dates showcase just one of the many dimensions […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29855,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,49,62],"tags":[4214],"class_list":["post-29854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview","category-new-release","category-rawk","tag-ben-folds","cat-41-id","cat-49-id","cat-62-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29854"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29854\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29856,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29854\/revisions\/29856"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}