Event
Ben Folds
Naples Philharmonic Special Performance
Naples Philharmonic
Jacomo Bairos, conductor
Ben Folds, guest artist
Ben Folds, the highly acclaimed singer-songwriter, pianist and frontman of the alternative rock trio Ben Folds Five, joins the Naples Philharmonic for a special night of energetic pop and rock that’s sure to captivate audiences with the fiery piano-playing and songs showcasing Folds’ trademark acerbic wit.
Folds was part of Chapel Hill, North Carolina’s indie rock scene in the early ’90s and rose to fame on the heels of Ben Folds Five’s second album, Whatever and Ever, Amen, which yielded hits like Brick, Battle of Who Could Care Less and Song for the Dumped.
In the years that followed, Folds has released numerous solo albums, collaborated with acts as diverse as Regina Spektor, “Weird Al” Yankovic, William Shatner and numerous orchestras around the world. While his 2015 release, Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, soared to No. 1 on both the Billboard classical and classical crossover charts, his most recent album, 2023’s What Matters Most, finds Folds returning to the blend of piano-driven pop-rock that made him a star.
Ben Folds
Ben Folds
Born and raised in North Carolina, Ben Folds first rose to fame in the mid-1990s with Ben Folds Five, whose 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 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.
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 U.S. and Europe; appeared on screen in films and television; 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, D.C., dedicated to celebrating the power of language.
