Sufjan Stevens returns with Carrie & Lowell
“The Best Record Sufjan Stevens Has Ever Made, also known as Carrie & Lowell”—The Guardian
“The most interesting musician in America right now”—Sunday Times
“As important questions about music’s worth in the age of free continue to swirl around him, Sufjan’s still combating instant-gratification culture the best way he knows how.”—Pitchfork
“Yet again this prodigal genius manages to confound expectations, confirming his place as modern music’s most protean artist”—The Independent
The Age of Adz named #6 Top 10 Albums of 2010 (TIME), #10 20 Best Albums of 2010 (MTV)
Illinois named Best Album of the Decade (Paste), #78 Best Album of 2000s (Rolling Stone), #16 Best Album of the 2000s (Pitchfork), Decade’s 50 Most Important Recordings (NPR)
To celebrate the release of his forthcoming album Carrie & Lowell, Sufjan Stevens will tour North America beginning in April. The headline dates include stops at New York’s Beacon Theater and Washington, D.C.’s DAR Constitution Hall. Stevens will also headline the U.K.’s End of the Road festival this September.
Carrie & Lowell will be released March 31 on Stevens’ own Asthmatic Kitty Records.
Carrie & Lowell was recorded by Stevens alongside Casey Foubert, Laura Veirs, Nedelle Torrisi, Sean Carey, Ben Lester and Thomas Bartlett and mixed by Stevens, Bartlett and Pat Dillet. Thematically the 11 songs address life and death, love and loss, and the artist’s struggle to make sense of the beauty and ugliness of love. The album is named for Stevens’ mother and stepfather and is a return to Stevens’ folk roots.
A singer-songwriter currently living in Brooklyn, NY, Stevens’ preoccupation with epic concepts has motivated two state records (Michigan & Illinois), a collection of sacred and biblical songs (Seven Swans), an electronic album for the animals of the Chinese zodiac (Enjoy Your Rabbit), two Christmas box sets (Songs for Christmas, vol. 1-5 and Silver & Gold, vol. 6-10), and a BAM-commissioned programmatic tone poem for the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway (The BQE). In 2010 Stevens released an expansive EP (All Delighted People) and the full length The Age of Adz, a collection of songs partly inspired by the outsider artist Royal Robertson.
Stevens recently collaborated with New York City Ballet choreographer and dancer Justin Peck on Year of the Rabbit, a modern dance program set to a classical orchestration of Enjoy Your Rabbit and an original orchestral score commissioned for Peck’s ballet Everywhere We Go. Stevens’ second BAM commission Round-Up, an instrumental accompaniment to slow-motion rodeo footage, recently premiered at BAM’s Harvey Theater.
SUFJAN STEVENS LIVE
April 10 Philadelphia, PA Academy of Music
April 11 New York, NY Beacon Theater
April 12 Hartford, CT The Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts
April 14 Portland, ME Merrill Auditorium
April 15 Albany, NY The Palace Theater
April 16 Cleveland, OH Cleveland Masonic Auditorium
April 17 Columbus, OH Palace Theater
April 18 Indianapolis, IN The Murat Theatre
April 20 St. Louis, MO Peabody Opera House
April 21 Kansas City, MO Midland Theater
April 22 Minneapolis, MN Northrop Auditorium
April 23 Milwaukee, WI Riverside Theater
April 24 Chicago, IL Chicago Theatre
April 27 Detroit, MI Masonic Temple
April 28 Grand Rapids, MI Covenant Fine Arts Center
April 29 Toronto, ON Massey Hall
April 30 Montreal, QC Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier / Place Des Artes
May 1 Brooklyn, NY Kings Theatre
May 4 Boston, MA Citi Performing Arts Center – Wang Theatre
May 5 Washington, D.C. DAR Constitution Hall
May 6 Richmond, VA Altria Theater
May 7 Durham, NC Durham Performing Arts Center
May 9 New Orleans, LA Saenger Theatre
May 10 Dallas, TX Majestic Theatre
May 11 Houston, TX Jones Hall for the Performing Arts
May 12 Austin, TX Bass Concert Hall
June 2 San Diego, CA Copley Symphony Hall
June 3 Los Angeles, CA Dorothy Chandler Pavilion
June 5 Oakland, CA Fox Theater
June 8 Portland, OR Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall
June 9 Vancouver, BC Orpheum Theatre
June 10 Seattle, WA The Paramount Theatre