6 November 2015
Anaïs Mitchell
John Gallagher Jr. opens
One of the reigning queens of indie folk music, Anaïs Mitchell, graces the stage of the me&thee with her breathtaking mix of vocals and brilliant and complex storytelling. Praised by the UK’s Independent as “The most engaging and in some ways, most original artist currently working in the field of new American ‘folk’ music,” this young Vermont-based singer-songwriter has built an impressive discography, including a folk-rock opera, Hadestown, which you may have been lucky enough to have seen here four years ago. ¶ We’ve had some pretty famous people at the coffeehouse before, but now we can say we have a star of stage and screen: Tony Award winning actor (Spring Awakening) John Gallagher Jr. You may know him as Jim Harper in HBO’s The Newsroom and as Christopher Kitteridge in the stunning Olive Kitteridge mini-series. John brings his own original repertoire as the show opener.
Concert starts at 8:00 pm
Anaïs Mitchell is a generous performer who frequently collaborates and her discs have included guest appearances by fellow indie music royalty like Ani DiFranco, Greg Brown, and Justin Vernon of Bon Iver on Hadestown, singer-songwriter Rachel Ries on 2008’s Country/E.P, and her friend and fellow songwriter and guitarist Jefferson Hamer on Child Ballads. Anaïs began writing songs at 17 and at the tender age 22, won the New Folk award at the Kerrville Folk Festival, which in the music world is sort of like winning an Oscar at the Academy Awards or a gold medal at the Olympics. Mitchell’s Kerrville victory and her disc Hymns for the Exiled (2004) attracted the attention of singer/songwriter alt/folk rock goddess Ani DiFranco, who quickly signed her to her own Righteous Babe Records label.
Mitchell keeps releasing exceptional albums including what is widely considered her magnum opus, the folk-jazz-blues opera Hadestown, which dumped doomed lovers Orpheus and Eurydice in dusty, post-apocalyptic Depression-era America. The disc was released in 2010 and features a 22-person cast and toured New England stages before Mitchell returned to the studio to edit and rework the songs. Stereo Subversion’s Jonathan Sanders called Hadestown “a lasting example of where folk music can go when the right musicians take hold of history.” This riveting piece of music has just been chosen to be part of the New York Theatre Workshop’s current season.
In 2012, Mitchell formed her own label, Wilderland Records, and put out Young Man in America, another concept album which was “influenced by the recession” that the country was stuck in at the time and the gnawing feeling of uncertainty and restlessness of one who is no longer being parented but not yet a parent. Young Man was heralded as another musical breaththrough for Mitchell. Continuing her trajectory of musical mastership, Mitchell released a seven-song collection, 2013’s Child Ballads with Jefferson Hamer. Critics and listeners noted the stunning harmonies and undeniable musical chemistry between the two. The opening song, “Willie of Winsbury,” a stirring ballad of sex, money and death from 18th Century England, was awarded the 2014 BBC Folk Award for Best Traditional Song.
On her most recent release, 2014’s xoa, Mitchell flies solo on a stripped-down collection of fifteen tracks, some of which were rerecorded tunes from Hadestown and older, previously unrecorded songs. In interviews, Mitchell has likened the album to a musical valentine to her listeners, a way of saying “dear audience, thank you for everything.”
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John Gallagher Jr. is the actor and musician known for originating the role of Moritz Stiefel in Duncan Sheik and Steven Sater’s rock musical Spring Awakening, which earned him a Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical. He also played Johnny in Green Day’s Broadway musical American Idiot and Lee in the 2011 Broadway production of Jerusalem. He has appeared in many films and television productions and will be appearing in A Long Day’s Journey into Night on Broadway in February 2016. Now he’s ramping up a concurrent career as singer-songwriter.
Gallagher has been writing music since his early adolescent years. He frequently performs in live spaces such as Rockwood Music Hall in New York. This is his first time at the me&thee. John has stated on multiple occasions that he is working on putting out a record which should be available in early 2016. He has confirmed that the songs “Wild Wild Woods,” “Sarasota Someone” and “Dangerous Strangers” will be on his first album, and that the sound of it is “more rock ’n’ roll with a few ballads and acoustics.” Johnny played the Philadelphia Folk Festival in August 2015.
- Anaïs Mitchell:
- The most engaging, and in some ways, most original artist currently working in the field of new American ‘folk’ music. Independent on Sunday
- A true American original. Q
- A perfect example of how art, and the power of song, can transform the merely anecdotal into something almost mythic. The Financial Times
- Beautifully original, bristling with savage melancholy. THE DAILY TELEGRAPH
- A fierce, melodic affirmation of sadness and grief, love and lust, attachments formed both strong and precarious, Young Man in America is a marvel of a record from start to finish. BBC MUSIC
