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Ben Folds

Sunday, October 01, 2023 @ 7:30pm



State Theatre New Jersey
15 Livingston Avenue, New Brunswick, NJ 08901

Born and raised in North Carolina, Ben Folds first rose to fame in the mid-’90s 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 2010, Folds teamed up with celebrated author Nick Hornby on a collaborative record titled Lonely Avenue; and in 2014, he composed his first piano concerto; in 2015, he recorded an album with the classical ensemble yMusic. In 2017, Folds 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 with gallery shows in the U.S. 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), 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.

Indeed, Folds’ masterful new collection, What Matters Most, isn’t so much a statement as it is an offering, an open hand reaching out to all those wounded and bewildered by a world that seems to make less and less sense every day. Recorded in East Nashville with co-producer Joe Pisapia, the album marks Folds’ first new studio release in eight years, and it’s a bold, timely, cinematic work, one that examines the tragic and the absurd in equal measure as it reckons with hope and despair, gratitude and loss, identity, and perspective. The songs are bittersweet here, hilarious at times, but often laced with a quiet sense of longing and dread: a text message goes unanswered; an old classmate descends into the dark depths of internet conspiracies; a relationship unravels in the middle of a lake. And yet, taken as a whole, the result is an undeniably joyful record that refuses to succumb to the weight of the world around it, an ecstatic reminder of all the beauty and promise hiding in plain sight for anyone willing (and present enough) to recognize their moments as they arrive.




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FEATURED EVENTS

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There,

There, There (A Tribute to Radiohead)

Saturday, July 12, 2025 @ 8:00pm
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Band Infusion Musical Night by GG

Saturday, July 12, 2025 @ 7:00pm
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11 Livingston Avenue, New Brunswick, NJ 08901
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Annual

Annual Jazz, Health and Food Truck Festival 2025

Saturday, July 12, 2025 @ 11:00am
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S center and South Harrison Street, Orange, NJ 07050
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The Fumos

Saturday, July 12, 2025 @ 7:30pm
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6 Normandy Heights Road, Morristown, NJ 07960
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Michael

Michael Allman Band (evening show)

Saturday, July 12, 2025 @ 7:30pm
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217 E. Main Street, Tuckerton, NJ 08087
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EVENT PREVIEWS

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Lizzie Rose Music Room presents Griffin House

(TUCKERTON, NJ) -- Lizzie Rose Music Room presents Griffin House on Wednesday, September 10, 2025 at 7:30pm. Griffin is an American singer-songwriter and storyteller. Touring and making records for over 20 years, House has a discography that includes over 13 albums.



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Grammy Award Winner Raphael Saadiq to Bring "No Bandwidth" Tour to NJPAC

(NEWARK, NJ) -- Get ready to experience an exceptional performance by Raphael Saadiq at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC) on Thursday, October 2, 2025 at 8:00pm. This highly regarded one-person show, entitled "No Bandwidth," will highlight Saadiq's extraordinary talents through a compelling blend of storytelling and musicianship. Attendees can anticipate an unforgettable evening filled with artistic excellence.



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Dave Koz brings his Summer Horns tour to MPAC in August

(MORRISTOWN, NJ) -- Get set for a night of smooth summer jazz and funk with a touch of the sounds of the 1970s when Grammy-nominated saxophonist Dave Koz comes to Mayo Performing Arts Center (MPAC) as part of his Dave Koz & Friends Summer Horns 2025 tour on Wednesday, August 6, 2025 at 7:30pm.




 

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