“There are two kinds of cities: those that have symphony orchestras and those that are crap,” says singer/songwriter Ben Folds in David Smith’s article in Friday’s (8/7) Evening Standard (U.K.). Folds “is on stage addressing the people of San Diego, whose city is not crap…. ‘Orchestras are the highest form of civilization,’ he tells the polite crowd enjoying table service by the waterfront in southern California. Seagulls settle on top of the outdoor stage he shares with the San Diego Symphony Orchestra.… His next album, So There, features eight new songs performed by the New York classical sextet yMusic, with Folds on piano and vocals, followed by … his 21-minute Concerto for Piano and Orchestra.… The concerto was written in 2013 as a joint commission from Nashville Ballet and the Nashville Symphony and Minnesota orchestras…. He played with [orchestras] as a young university music student, though as a percussionist rather than a pianist…. ‘The excitement of music is stuff that breaks the law,’ says Folds…. ‘Someone coming on stage with a laptop and an oboe and a drum and rapping over it: that’s breaking the law.’ … Next up, he wants to write more classical pieces and give them to university orchestras.’ ”
Posted August 10, 2015
