Ben will be back in Kalamazoo this spring as one of the headliners at the 25th annual Irving S. Gilmore International Piano Festival, widely regarded as America’s most prestigious keyboard festival. Nearly 100 performances in venues around southwest Michigan will be featured during the three-week festival, ranging from jazz to classical and solo to musical theater. The list of artists in performance reads like a keyboard who’s who, with jazz musicians Barry Harris and Jacky Terrasson, classical masters Andre Watts and Emanuel Ax and nine-time winner John Legend on the schedule. Tickets for Ben’s April 26 performance go on sale February 1 through the festival’s website; see our tour dates page for more information.
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Gilmore International Keyboard Festival
Folds to perform at Ringo Starr tribute
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The David Lynch Foundation, a charity founded by the namesake filmmaker/TV producer/musician, has announced a concert honoring former Beatle and occasional railway conductor Ringo Starr with the foundation’s Lifetime of Peace and Love Award at Los Angeles’ El Rey Theatre on Monday, January 20. The concert will feature performances by Ben Folds, Joe Walsh (WB6ACU), Brendan Bensen, Ben Harper, Bettye LaVette and Dave Stewart. The show is being produced by veteran musician/producer Don Was, a Detroit-area native and co-founder of the iconic band Was (Not Was).
The event is part of DLF Live, a performance arts initiative sponsored by the foundation, which provides scholarships so endangered youth, the homeless, survivors of domestic violence and veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder to experience transcendental meditation therapy in an effort to make their lives better. Starr is a longtime proponent of transcendental meditation; his interest dates back to the late sixties when the Beatles studied under the storied Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and which influenced the Beatles’ transformation from the teeny-bopper genre to making magically mysterious music.
Folds has teamed up with Lynch previously, contributing a track to a DLF video and music compilation released on iTunes in 2011.
Individual tickets (at $1,000) are sold out, but tables and sponsorships are still available as of today.
Note: Due to an editing error, an incorrect date appeared for this show in the listing below and on the Tour Dates page. It has been corrected. The Magical Armchair regrets the error.
Related show
Frog Trouble
You’ve seen the greeting cards, coffee mugs and calendars featuring anthropomorphic characterizations of animals in arrangements like “Hippo Birdie Two Ewes” and “Wee Fish Ewe a Mare Egrets Moose”. They’re the creations of artist and musician Sandra Boynton, also known for three gold records and a Grammy nomination for her humorous renditions featuring luminaries such as B. B. King, Neil Sedaka and Brian Wilson. Now, Ben Folds joins Boynton’s co-conspirators on a country collection titled Frog Trouble…and Eleven Other Pretty Serious Songs, now available in stores and online. Folds contributes a track called Broken Piano, a honky-tonk tune about a somewhat out-of-tune upright with eighty-eight keys, six of which don’t play. Besides Ben, musicians contributing to the album include  Alison Krauss, Brad Paisley, Ryan Adams and Fountains of Wayne. You can hear the track and view a behind-the-scenes video at Ben’s website, and purchase the Boynton album from Amazon.com.
Folds to perform at Kraddick memorial
Ben Folds will appear and perform at a memorial service in Dallas, Texas August 15 for the late radio host David “Kidd” Kraddick, who passed away last month. Folds was a favorite of Kidd and his daughter Caroline, who is helping to arrange the event. Kraddick was known to millions of radio listeners through his daily program “Kidd Kraddick in the Morning”, which was based in Dallas. The service, to be held at the AT&T Plaza outside the American Airlines Center in Dallas, begins at 5:30 pm and will feature several musical performances besides Folds’. The memorial, to be live-streamed on kiddtv.com, will be followed by a benefit concert for Kraddick’s children’s charity Kidd’s Kids at the Dallas House of Blues.
“The Sing-Off” judge lineup confirmed
The schedule and lineup of judges has been announced for the fourth season of NBC Television’s hit a cappella competition show The Sing-Off.
Ben Folds joins returning judge Shawn Stockman and new judge Jewel, who replaces Sara Bareilles. Nick Lachey continues as host.
The show will air as a holiday strip, similar to the first two seasons when it appeared over multiple nights for a short run in December. The third season was a weekly serial running across the first half of the season. Contestant auditions were held in four cities in April of this year.
The Grammy-nominated Jewel just finished starring as June Carter Cash in Lifetime Television’s biography Ring of Fire. She’s also released a greatest-hits album this year.
