(NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ) -- State Theatre New Jersey presents Judy Collins & Madeleine Peyroux on Saturday, May 10, 2025 at 8:00pm. Folk and jazz icons share the stage for an unforgettable double bill of songs and stories.
Join Grammy® Award-winner Judy Collins, “the wild ageless angel of pop” (The New York Times), as she performs her legendary 1967 album Wildflowers in its entirety. Collins is joined by Madeleine Peyroux, who has become one of today’s most acclaimed jazz singers since she began her illustrious career busking on the busy streets of Paris.
Judy Collins has long inspired audiences with sublime vocals, boldly vulnerable songwriting, personal life triumphs, and a firm commitment to social activism. In the 1960s, she evoked both the idealism and steely determination of a generation united against social and environmental injustices. Five decades later, her luminescent presence shines brightly as new generations bask in the glow of her iconic 55-album body of work and heed inspiration from her spiritual discipline to thrive in the music industry for half a century.
The award-winning singer-songwriter is esteemed for her imaginative interpretations of traditional and contemporary folk standards and her own poetically poignant original compositions. Her stunning rendition of Joni Mitchell's “Both Sides Now” from her landmark 1967 album, Wildflowers, has been entered into the Grammy® Hall of Fame. Collins’ dreamy and sweetly intimate version of “Send in the Clowns,” a ballad written by Stephen Sondheim for the Broadway musical A Little Night Music, won "Song of the Year” at the 1975 Grammy® Awards. She’s garnered several top ten hits, gold and platinum-selling albums. Recently, contemporary and classic artists such as Rufus Wainwright, Shawn Colvin, Dolly Parton, Joan Baez, and Leonard Cohen honored her legacy with the album Born to the Breed: A Tribute to Judy Collins.
The cultural treasure’s 55th album, Spellbound, was released in February 2022, finds Collins enjoying an artistic renaissance. The 13-song album is a special entry in her oeuvre. It marks the first time she wrote all the songs on one of her albums. It features 12 new, recently written modern folk songs, and a bonus track of her evergreen, “The Blizzard.” Spellbound is an introspective and impressionistic album. It unfolds as if she curated a museum exhibit of her life and welcomed us into a retrospective of her most formative moments, some big and public, and some intensely personal and intimate. Spellbound was nominated in the Best Folk Album category at the 65th Recording Academy Grammy® Awards in 2023.
Madeleine Peyroux's captivating ninth album, Let’s Walk, is the acclaimed singer-songwriter’s most assured, courageous work to date. Powered by the distinctive, honeyed croon that delivered her from the Paris streets to concert halls, these 10 unabashedly personal songs, all co-written by the versatile Peyroux, deftly interweave jazz, folk, and chamber pop, with themes ranging from the confessional to the political, from whimsy to yearning. In every note, Peyroux digs deep, rendering this exquisite work with disarming grace and gravitas of an artist in peak form.
For the ardently civic-minded Peyroux, Let’s Walk continues the scintillating conversation with her audience—and with the world at large. “This music is part of a dialogue,” she says. “That’s what art is. It’s engagement, community. I believe more than anything in getting together with people and listening to music and conversing. Music is the only way I’ve ever built community.”
Let’s Walk was a long time coming, but well worth the wait. Following Peyroux’s 2018 album, Anthem, the enforced isolation of the global pandemic made any real-time community gathering impossible. However, from a creative standpoint, Covid offered Peyroux a silver lining: she seized the opportunity to hunker down with longtime collaborator, multi-instrumentalist Jon Herington (Steely Dan, Lucy Kaplansky). The pair reflected on the seismic era at hand and wrote and re-wrote in what Peyroux calls “a shadow of reckoning.” When multi-Emmy® and Grammy®-winning producer Elliott Scheiner (Fleetwood Mac, The Eagles) heard a sampling of the new material, he mandated “no covers” for the album. The longtime studio veteran knew the time was ripe to highlight Peyroux’s incisive, often topical lyrics meshed with Herington’s ear for melody and arrangements.
Tickets range from $39-$99 and are available for purchase online or by calling State Theatre Guest Services at 732-246-SHOW (7469). State Theatre Guest Services, located at 15 Livingston Ave, New Brunswick NJ, is open by phone and email only, Tuesday through Friday from 11:00am to 5:00pm. For in-person purchases, Guest Services is open Tuesday through Friday from 12:00pm to 4:30pm. Additional ticket and transaction fees may apply.
After major renovations, State Theatre New Jersey celebrated its 100th Anniversary in December 2021 in a fully renovated theater. Originally built as a silent film and vaudeville palace, State Theatre’s historic significance was honored by PBS by featuring it in its documentary series, Treasures of New Jersey, in the fall of 2018. “Treasures of New Jersey: State Theatre New Jersey” can be streamed online.
Today, State Theatre is the largest performing arts center in Central New Jersey and has welcomed more than six million people through its doors since reopening as a nonprofit performing arts center in 1988. State Theatre New Jersey is a cornerstone of the cultural vitality of Middlesex County and averages a total economic impact on New Brunswick and the surrounding area of more than $18 million a year. The mainstage programs have featured high-caliber artists such as Diana Ross, Tom Jones, Kevin Hart, Ringo Starr, Melissa Etheridge, John Leguizamo, Harry Connick, Jr., Diana Krall, and Crosby, Stills & Nash. Program offerings include Broadway, orchestra, family, dance, comedy, rock/pop, jazz, Performances for Schools, and Sensory-Friendly Performances.
State Theatre New Jersey’s programs are made possible by funds from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, a partner agency of the National Endowment for the Arts. Grant funding has been provided by the Middlesex County Board of County Commissioners through a grant award from the Middlesex County Cultural and Arts Trust Fund. For information on events, go to MiddlesexCountyCulture.com.
