The television viewing public knows rocker Ben Folds as a judge on NBC’s
The Sing-Off. Longstanding fans know him as a singer/songwriter/pianist — both with the Ben Folds Five and as a solo artist. For
The Ben Folds Orchestral Experience, the boyish, bespectacled maestro kicks it up a notch, performing with a slightly-larger-than-usual backing group, the Houston Symphony, under the baton of Lucas Waldin. As part of the Symphony Summer in the City Concert Series, Folds and friends are set to perform both his new piano concerto and a selection of career-spanning material like “Brick,” “Annie Waits,” and “Jesusland.”
Co-commissioned by the Nashville Symphony, Nashville Ballet and Minnesota Orchestra, the piano concerto premiered earlier this year in a performance by Folds with the Nashville Symphony. He spent a year writing the concerto. The result was a physically demanding, technically challenging composition that required Folds to then improve his technique or risk being injured.
7:30 p.m. Jones Hall for the Performing Arts, 615 Louisiana. For information, call 713‑224‑7575 or houstonsymphony.org. $25 to $108.
Sat., June 14, 7:30 p.m., 2014
