JUDY COLLINS and MADELEINE PEYROUX Performing with the San Diego Symphony Orchestra | ABOUT THE ARTISTS
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
In her 6th decade as an artist, GRAMMY® Award- winning singer-songwriter JUDY COLLINS is taking a rare moment to look back on her landmark 1967 album, Wildflowers. The cultural icon will perform an exclusive series of shows bringing to full bloom her chamber-folk masterwork supported by an orchestra. The show will also feature Collins’ most beloved songs from her decades-spanning oeuvre.
Wildflowers is Gold-certified and landed No. 5 on the Billboard Pop Albums charts—it remains her highest- charting album. Wildflowers was a milestone entry in Collins’ career because it featured her first three original compositions, “Since You Asked,” “Sky Fell,” and “Albatross.” “Since You Asked” was written in response to a formative moment in 1966 when Leonard Cohen made a special trip to Collins’ apartment to play her his song, “Suzanne,” and, while there, asked her why she wasn’t writing her own songs. That very day, Collins sat down at her Steinway and wrote, “Since You’ve Asked.” “Albatross” was featured in the 1968 film adaptation of The Subject Was Roses.
Collins curated a stunning collection, featuring songs by not-yet household names such as Joni Mitchell— her version of “Both Sides, Now” was a Top 10 hit—and Leonard Cohen, including the song “Priests” which Cohen never recorded, along with adventurous selections by Jacques Brel and Francesco Landini.
These Wildflowers concerts present something of an intriguing gesture, fusing together Collins’ most recent album—Spellbound, nominated for Best Folk Album in the 2023 GRAMMYs® —which marks the first time ever she wrote all the songs on one of her albums.
The cultural treasure’s 55th album released earlier this year, Spellbound, out February 25, 2022, finds Collins enjoying an artistic renaissance. The 13-song album is a special entry in her oeuvre. It marks the first time ever she wrote all the songs on one of her albums. It features 12 recently written modern folk songs, and a bonus track of her evergreen, “The Blizzard.”
Collins dedicates Spellbound to folk masters Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie. In a life brimming with milestone moments, Spellbound is a high watermark of artistry and personal evolution. Though Collins has been writing for half a century, her new album ushers in an era of unbridled creativity.
In 2014, Rounder Records released Keep Me in Your Heart for a While: The Best of MADELEINE PEYROUX, the debut anthology of the critically acclaimed, singer-songwriter’s 20-year career. Liner notes by former Atlantic Records A&R man Yves Beauvais, who discovered Peyroux, completed the package.
Almost a decade later, Peyroux now offers another “Best of” project—this time the songwriter’s material is enhanced by orchestrations from composer, arranger and conductor Sean O’Loughlin. This evening’s program offers another listen, a deeper listen to what have become her classics and fan favorites. Just as her earlier “Best of” combined the poignant with the charming, the old with the new, and the standard favorites with original compositions, we are reminded with this project that whether she sings Leonard Cohen (“Dance Me to the End of Love”), her originals (“Don’t Wait Too Long and We Might As Well Dance”), Warren Zevon (“Desperadoes Under the Eaves”), or post-punk songster Elliott Smith (“Between the Bars”), Peyroux brings to this most diverse material the same beguilingly cautious, respectful, and crystal clear way with the melody, the same revelatory focus to the lyric’s delivery.
From busking on the streets of Paris as a teenager, Peyroux now travels the globe to perform in some of the world’s most iconic music venues. As her Careless Love Forever World tour came to a close at the end of March 2023, having crisscrossed the U.S., Canada, Europe, South America and Australia and New Zealand, the singer-songwriter began several engagements with symphony orchestras in April. And a new recording is on the horizon for release in 2024.
