Performing Arts Houston presents Ben Folds: Paper Airplane Request Tour
(HOUSTON, November 8, 2024) – Singer-songwriter, podcaster, author, and photographer Ben Folds makes his Performing Arts Houston debut with the Paper Airplane Request Tour, coming to Jones Hall on December 10, 2024. Alongside special guest Lindsey Kraft, Folds will perform the audience’s favorite songs, to be delivered to the stage via paper airplane. Tickets start at $30, with a portion of all tickets supporting Folds’ Keys for Kids, at performingartshouston.org.
Born and raised in North Carolina, Folds first rose to fame in the mid-’90s with Ben Folds Five, who’s acerbic, genre-bending take on piano pop helped define an entire era of alternative rock. After scoring multiple hit singles and a gold record with the band, Folds launched his solo career in 2001, releasing a series of similarly acclaimed albums that would firmly establish him as one of the most ambitious and versatile songwriters of his generation. In 2010, Folds teamed up with celebrated author Nick Hornby on a collaborative record titled Lonely Avenue; in 2014, he composed and performed his first piano concerto for the Nashville Symphony and Nashville Ballet in 2015, he recorded an album with the classical ensemble yMusic; in 2017, he became the artistic advisor to the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center, where he began curating a series of performances marrying contemporary artists with symphonic orchestration; in 2019, he released his New York Times best-selling memoir, A Dream About Lightning Bugs; and in 2021, he launched the Lightning Bugs podcast, an interview series on creativity and process with guests as diverse as Jon Batiste, Sara Bareilles, Bob Saget, and Rainn Wilson.
As if that wasn’t enough to keep him busy, Folds also revealed himself to be a prolific photographer as a member of Sony’s prestigious Artisans Of Imagery, with gallery shows in the US and Europe, appeared onscreen in films and television (most recently playing himself in three episodes of the hit Amazon Prime series The Wilds), composed music for a 25-minute stage adaptation of Mo Willem’s Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs (which premiered at the Kennedy Center), earned an Emmy nomination for his composition of the theme song for a popular new Peanuts animated TV special, and serves on the boards of the Arts Action Fund, the Nashville Symphony and Planet Word, a new immersive museum in Washington, DC, dedicated to celebrating the power of language.
Working with friends Rob Moose, Ross Garren and Tall Heights, and with Dodie and Ruby Amanfu lending vocal harmonies, Folds tackled the recording process with an orchestrator’s ear, carefully arranging each instrumental element in relief to his electrifying, insistent vocal melodies. Such detailed deliberation didn’t supplant improvisation or spontaneity in the room, but rather it focused the music first and foremost on supporting the lyrics, which stand front and center even in the record’s most sonically wild and unexpected moments.
That marriage of sophisticated craftsmanship and raw energy is clear from the top of the album, which opens with the defiantly optimistic But Wait, There’s More. “Do you still believe in the good of humankind? / I do I do I do I do I do,” Folds sings over a minimalist keyboard sequence that lands somewhere between Steve Reich and Laurie Anderson before giving way to lush horns and propulsive drums. Like much of the album, the song revels in unpredictability, zigging when you expect it to zag as it offers an empathetic acknowledgement of just how exhausting it is to live perpetually perched on the edge. “Not sure that we can take too much more,” Folds confesses in the track’s final seconds. “Pray that there’s a bottom somewhere in sight / Brothers and sisters hold tight.”
From there, Folds wields humor and pathos with surgical precision as he walks a delicate tightrope between the ridiculous and the mundane. The playful Exhausting Lover spins a surreal caricature of rock and roll debauchery over an utterly addictive groove, while the melancholic Clouds With Ellipses ruminates on the distinctly modern rhythms and anxieties that come with sharing our most intimate, vulnerable selves via text, and the spare Kristine From the 7th Grade watches an acquaintance retreat into their own reality of political misinformation and culture war nonsense.
Folds ultimately isn’t interested in simply lamenting the flaws of our times, but rather in finding ways to still connect to the magic and wonder of being alive no matter what the world may throw at us. The dreamy Back To Anonymous embraces the unexpected freedom of a world in which everyone is masked; the off-kilter pop of Winslow Gardens loses track of the passing time while isolating with a loved one; the aching title track What Matters Most finds new perspective in the face of tragic loss. By the time we arrive at radiant closer Moments, it’s clear that transcendence is always within reach, no matter how unlikely it may seem.
In the album’s opening moments, But Wait, There’s More comes off as a rather grimly sardonic tease. (We live in an age of overstimulation, overconsumption, and overwhelming self-absorption. Just how much more can we take?) But by the album’s end, the line feels more like a mantra of hope and perseverance, a reminder that there’s more to this life than meets the eye, more to celebrate, more to love, more to be grateful for. It’s hard to imagine a more generous offering than that.
TICKET INFORMATION
Tickets start at $30, at performingartshouston.org or by calling the Performing Arts Houston Box Office at (713) 227-4772. To support the arts and enjoy benefits like early access to new performances, exclusive pricing, and more, become a Performing Arts Houston member at performingartshouston.org/memberships.
ABOUT PERFORMING ARTS HOUSTON
Performing Arts Houston is a leading non-profit performing arts presenter dedicated to connecting audiences with exceptional artists from around the globe. Founded in 1966, the organization remains committed to advancing artistic innovation, community engagement, and cultural enrichment. With a legacy spanning over five decades, Performing Arts Houston has presented many of the most influential artists of our time.
Each year, Performing Arts Houston presents a multi-disciplinary season of over 60 performances across Houston’s historic Theater District and venues citywide and creates a wide range of programs and opportunities for students and lifelong learners to engage with and experience the arts, including masterclasses, workshops, talks, student matinees, performance avenues for local arts groups, paid arts administration internships, a commissioning series for working Houston artists, and in-school residencies. Learn more at performingartshouston.org.
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CALENDAR DETAILS
Performing Arts Houston
presents
Ben Folds: Paper Airplane Request Tour
December 10, 2024
Tuesday, 7:30 pm
Jones Hall
Tickets start at $30
performingartshouston.org
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