Ben Folds, Royal Opera House review: Pop and classical in true harmony
Pop star goes classical. Sounds dreadful, doesn’t it? Not in the hands of Ben Folds.
The North Carolinian, best known in his guise as the piano-playing frontman in Ben Folds Five, revels in a leftfield side-project, having written an album with author Nick Hornby in the past. However, his latest venture is audacious even by his standards. Teaming up with New York’s yMusic ensemble, he’s penned a series of chamber-pop ballads and a 21-minute concerto for piano and orchestra. The resulting album, So There, is released next month and last night he came to the Royal Opera House to air some of its material.
In contrast to the ego-meets-orchestra template favoured by George Michael and co, this felt like a true collaboration. Not A Fan, a dreamy waltz chronicling the steady demise of a relationship, had echoes of Pet Sounds-era Beach Boys. I’m Not The Man made full use of the yMusic ensemble, building to a rousing crescendo of brass and strings.
Folds grew up playing in orchestras, albeit as a percussionist rather than pianist, and the 48-year-old seemed immediately at home here. An encore of heart-on-sleeve ballad Evaporated was a reminder that Folds will always be more Jackson Browne than Johann Sebastian Bach. But, as experiments go, his classical conversion must be judged as a huge success.
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