Name: Ben Folds with the Seattle Symphony
Start: 2025-12-04T19:30:00
Location: Benaroya Hall

Ben Folds

Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestra

Our 2025/2026 season culminates with the ultimate symphony — Beethoven’s Ninth, featuring an all-star cast of soloists chosen by Music Director Xian Zhang and joined by the massed forces of the Seattle Symphony Chorale. Revolutionary, epic and at 200 years old, still as driven as Beethoven’s own sense of our shared destiny, he crowned this summit of his music with the stunning addition of voices in a song for humanity, hope and joy. Xian pairs it with Artist in Focus Steven Mackey’s RIOT, for chorus, vocalist and the composer himself on electric guitar. This inspiring music places race and resilience in the foreground with a setting of words by Tracy K. Smith — culminating in positive affirmation and a celebration of perseverance, commitment and community.

Xian Conducts Beethoven 9

Benaroya Hall

Composer, singer-songwriter and pianist Ben Folds joins the Seattle Symphony for a night of performances blending his intimate narrative style with expansive orchestra arrangements. Widely regarded as being a significant musical influencer of his generation, Folds' enormous body of genre-bending music includes a mix of power pop and alt rock albums with Ben Folds Five, multiple solo albums and numerous collaborative records. His latest album, 2023’s What Matters Most, is a blend of piano-driven pop rock songs, while his 2015 Concerto for Piano and Orchestra soared to No. 1 on both the Billboard Classical and Classical Crossover charts.