Last night we saw Eleri Ward at Joe’s Pub in New York City. It will sound like hyperbole, but a star was indeed born last night. During her 70-minute set she held the audience fully captive in her hands with beautiful performances of songs from this album and also her first-ever performance of Another Hundred People from Company. Plus she was joined by Eden Espinosa and Donna Murphy. So when she returns to Joe’s Pub or anywhere else grab a ticket as soon as you can!

No one is more surprised at the success of her recordings of the songs of Stephen Sondheim than Eleri Ward. Born out of posting online videos, what started out as a lark become a full-fledged album on Ghostlight Records called A Perfect Little Death.

On her record Ward sings songs you might expect like Being Alive (from Company), Losing My Mind (from Follies) and Send in the Clowns (from A Little Night Music). She also chooses some less commonly recorded songs like Loving You (from Passion), Sunday (from Sunday in the Park with George) and Every Day a Little Death (from A Little Night Music.) The last song includes a lyric that gave Ward her album’s title.

The style of Ward’s performances mixes Sondheim’s songs with the alternative-indie style of Sufjan Stevens. The end result has prompted multiple people to comment on how this is just the right music for our troubled times. As Ward told me when we spoke via Zoom last week.

What follows are excerpts from my conversation with Eleri Ward that have been edited for length and clarity.

Does the reaction you’ve received to your recordings of these songs surprise you? And that people say this was the music they didn’t know they needed but are glad they have?

It is surprising because I guess this is just how my brain works and this is just kind of how I have heard things. And so it feels natural to me. I suppose it does make sense because when have we ever heard these songs and in just a way where it’s acoustic guitar and vocal? It’s so crazy to me that that is something that multiple people have said to me. I’m like, that’s awesome, because this is how I want to make them. 

Do you think part of the response you’ve gotten is because of how complicated the last 18 months have been?

Given the past year and a half, it does make sense. It’s like everyone obviously loves Sondheim and like these songs are iconic and amazing, but when you’re in the middle of a pandemic do you really want to hear the Sweeney whistle blowing in your ear like problems?

When you started posted videos online of these songs was the goal to make an album?

I didn’t even really realize that this is what it was until I set out to record the album. But to take these songs that obviously are universal and strip them back and kind of make them raw and even more naked was something that I was like, what is that like? What can these songs say when they are truly just like bare bones? When it comes to the original orchestrations of all of these songs they are quite complicated and full and huge. What can those stories also illuminate when they are simple? And so that’s kind of like what my my take on them has been.

The recordings seem so effortless. Do you believe in the idea of the artist as a vessel? That the work came through you?

Creativity grows in a garden more lushly when there’s a fence around it. If you take that fence away it can just spread out and it is not as dense. And I feel like within this situation, I had a very clear fence around my creativity. It’s like these are not my songs. So I automatically have very little ego about certain parts of it. So it was very selfless in that way. And then when it came to arrangement, it’s like, OK, the melody is the melody, like that’s what I’m sticking with. And now the arrangement can just like flourish off of that confine. And so I feel like having those boundaries around my creative process is what allowed me to be the vessel and not have really any part of me be glued to it. It’s it was a very freeing situation. 

Have you seen Sondheim’s shows?

I have definitely seen Company. I’ve been in Company. I’ve seen Sweeney Todd multiple times. Company and Sweeney Todd are my favorites shows. I’ve been in Merrily We Roll Along. I’ve seen Merrily multiple times. Follies I’ve seen. I don’t think I’ve ever thought about this. I think that might be it. Oh, and I’ve seen Sunday in the Park with George.

The reason for asking is that you’re too young to have seen some of his shows. I’m wondering what your thoughts are about audiences embracing them years after their original run more than they did when they were first produced?

I think his honesty can manifest itself in a very raw, dark human way that prior to him, I don’t know if I can name that many writers or shows that offer that darkness just as it is. It’s dark, but it’s human and like I know you’re thinking it, so why not just accept it? Anyone who is a pioneer in their path is always going to be met with skepticism and distance at first because it’s new. And on top of that his orchestrations are not something that you just turn on and like have a pleasant little cup of tea, too. He’s spot on. He’s totally right. And I feel seen and I feel heard.

What has A Perfect Little Death and its success revealed to you about who you are as an artist and as a person?

It’s emotional to me how much it has kind of enlightened my life. I don’t make folk music or acoustic music and yet now I do. I didn’t know that my sound would be kind of identified by this, like breathy yodel-y thing that I do. And now I think all the things that I’ve done with this album are very true to who I really am, but I have never given the spotlight to or given the chance to fully embrace all of them. I think it’s allowing me to be surprised by myself and allow all of those surprises to be valid and embraced. I don’t have to question any of them or, you know, denounce any of them or distance myself from any of them or try to be humble about any of them. It’s like this is all who I am. I might not have known that all of these things were who I was meant to be X amount of time ago. But they are now and I can’t deny it. And I’m not going to deny myself the things that I’ve surprised myself with. I think that’s the biggest thing is it’s been full of surprises in terms of learning about myself, not only as a person, but as an artist.

Photo: Eleri Ward (Courtesy Ghostlight Records)

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Muhly has assembled a program that includes his collaboration with Thomas Bartlett on Peter Pears: Balinese Ceremonial Music. This album was released in 2018 by Nonesuch Records. It features nine songs the two wrote together and three transcriptions of traditional Gamelan music.

Philip Glass has long been an inspiration for Muhly. As part of this program he will offer his own interpretations of some of the composer’s lesser-known works. These will be performed with Nadia Sirota on the viola and Caroline Shaw on vocals and violin, Alex Sopp on flute, Lisa Kaplan on piano, Lisa Liu on violin, Patrick Belaga on cello and Wade Culbreath on percussion.

Rumors are circulating about some special guests who will be part of this concert. Since Muhly has worked with Sufjan Stevens, Bryce Dessner, Benjamin Millepied and more, who could they be?

I’m hoping that one or more of his operas, Two Boys, Dark Sides or Marnie might be performed in Los Angeles sooner as opposed to later.  LA Opera? Beth Morrison Projects? REDCAT?

Until that happens, we’ll have Archives, Friends, Patterns which is our pick for Your Best Bet This Week in Culture.

For tickets go here.

Photo of Nico Muhly by Heidi Solander/Courtesy of Cap UCLA

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When something becomes taboo, it’s like the forbidden fruit. You know you aren’t supposed to try it, but inevitably you will. The realization of that cause and effect seems to be lost on politicians. As it was on Jesse Helms and others when an exhibition of photographs by Robert Mapplethorpe in Cincinnati became the front line in the culture wars in 1990. Not only did it capture the media’s attention, it became a pivotal moment for a then fourteen-year-old Bryce Dessner.

Dessner is known as one of the members of the rock band The National. He’s also known as a composer who has collaborated with the likes of Nico Muhly, Caroline Shaw, Philip Glass, Sufjan Stevens and Paul Simon.

On Tuesday, the Los Angeles Philharmonic will offer the world premiere of Triptych (Eyes of One on Another). The work is part of the Green Umbrella Series and was inspired by Dessner’s recollections of the controversy surrounding this exhibit and Mapplethorpe’s work. This premiere is the concert version of Triptych. A larger presentation, with full staging, sets and costume design, will have its premiere on March 15th at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Dessner wrote Triptych in collaboration with librettist Korde Arrington Tuttle (featuring words by Essex Hemphill and Patti Smith) and with the vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth in mind.

I recently spoke with Dessner about Triptych, Mapplethorpe and the new recording of his Piano Concerto for 2 Pianos featuring Katia & Marielle Labéque.

What do you remember most about the controversy and shutting down of the Mapplethorpe exhibit?

As a teenager born and raised in Cincinnati, those events really marked the city in a way that stuck with me. It was later on when I got into college and studied art more seriously that I got to know better his work. 

What is it about defining art, particularly the way these photographs were, that provokes greater interest?

I think it absolutely backfired. There is a beautiful essay, The Invisible Dragon [by Dave Hickey] where he talks about on some level Mapplethorpe needed Jessie Helms in terms of how it amplified his work and it became so much more scrutinized and into the bloodstream. It had the opposite effect.

How has Triptych evolved as you near the premiere and do you anticipate making changes before the subsequent performances?

I think the score has evolved dramatically. The process and timing was a bit later than I would normally be comfortable with. It’s a tricky subject matter in terms of getting a solid structure to what we wanted to say. It took a lot of revisions. The music has been shifting up to the last week. It will keep evolving. There’s a bit of pressure with a premiere like this. Ideally we could keep workshopping it and make it better. In June it comes to New York. Before then I would imagine I will revise the score quite a bit.

You’ve chosen to use a lot of vocals accompanied by a chamber orchestra. How did that decision come about?

My challenge on this piece, which is text driven, the libretto is substantial and important and a lot is said with unbelievable poetry. I hope my music measured up. The piece does have a wide range of sounds. I wanted the music to be heard. But here I was very focused on the text to the extent the piece is clear and can be sung. 

There’s a statement about Triptych that says the work “examines how we look and are looked at, bringing us face-to-face with our innermost desires, fears and humanity.” How did writing Triptych bring you face-to-face with those same things?

I try to let the piece guide me and to listen to my collaborators and the great musicians who are singing it and performing it and come to it with an open heart. And to be aware that these conflicts are in me, too.  Just because I’m making this piece, I’m not exempt from confronting these pieces the way others do.

You have a new recording coming out in April featuring your Concerto for Two Pianos and El Chan (also the name of the CD). The Labéque Sisters seem to be a muse for you. What is unique about them and your collaboration with them?

Katia and Marielle have been playing music together since they were kids. They also work 8-10 hours a day together. It’s a joy to make music with them. They’ve been through enough and seen enough and they are open-minded and supportive. It’s been a beautiful experience.

Mapplethorpe said, “My whole point is to transcend the subject…to go beyond the subject somehow so that the composition, the lighting, all around, reaches a certain point of perfection.” As a composer, do you aspire to do the same thing?

I get great joy when the notes on the page, through the interpretive experience and collaborative experience of mounting the performance with performers, almost lift off and I no longer own them. That’s definitely the case with the singers in this project. I hear them sing ideas I had in the studio, but it’s almost a new piece through their interpretation. That feeling is what keeps me going and why I keep doing this.

Main Photo by Shervin Lainez

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