Artpark announces 'Ben Folds: What Matters Most Tour'

Show is June 16; tickets on sale Friday, Feb. 17

Singer-songwriter, musician and composer Ben Folds will bring his “What Matters Most Tour” to the Artpark Mainstage Theater at 8 p.m. Friday, June 16. This concert is presented by Live Nation.

Indoor reserved seats go on sale at 10 a.m. Friday, Feb. 17, and start at $36. Prices include a facility fee. Additional fees apply for online orders. Purchase online at ticketmaster.com. The Artpark box office will be open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. that day.

A press release stated, “Widely regarded as one of the major music influencers of our generation, Folds’ masterful new collection, ‘What Matters Most,’ isn’t so much a statement as it is an offering, an open hand reaching out to all those wounded and bewildered by a world that seems to make less and less sense every day. 

Folds said, “There’s a lifetime of craft and experience all focused into this one record. Sonically, lyrically, emotionally, I don’t think it’s an album I could have made at any other point in my career.” 

Folds will release “What Matters Most” on June 2 via New West Records. The 10-song set was co-produced by Folds and Joe Pisapia (K.D. Lang, Guster) in East Nashville, and features guest appearances by dodie, Tall Heights, and Ruby Amanfu. “What Matters Most” is Folds’ first studio album since his chart-topping collaboration in 2015 with the string ensemble yMusic.

His team said, “The masterful collection is a bold, timely, cinematic work. It is one that examines the tragic and the absurd in equal measures as it reckons with hope and despair, gratitude and loss, identity and perspective. The songs are bittersweet, hilarious at times, yet often laced with a quiet sense of longing and dread. Taken as a whole, the result is an undeniably joyful album that refuses to succumb to the weight of the world around it, an ecstatic reminder of all the beauty and promise hiding in plain sight for anyone willing (and present enough) to recognize their moments as they arrive.”

Folds is sharing the first new music from “What Matters Most” with the album highlight “Winslow Gardens,” an off-kilter pop song about losing track of the passing time while isolating with a loved one. 

This event joins a growing list of confirmed performances at Artpark this season including: The Avett Brothers (May 21); Mt. Joy (May 25); Noah Kahan (May 26); Rainbow Kitten Surprise (June 7); Buddy Guy (June 10); Young The Giant with Milky Chance (June 13); Michael Franti & Spearhead (June 21); Tori Amos (July 8); Barenaked Ladies (July 11); RAIN: A Tribute to the Beatles (July 16) and Parker McCollum (Aug. 17).

Visit artpark.net for more information.