News

Natalie Merchant Announces Special Performance At Free Word Centre

• 9th Nov 2009

Natalie Merchant will perform and discuss a selection of songs from her forthcoming album release at the newly established Free Word Centre in London on Wednesday November 18. For the past five years Merchant has been researching, writing and recording a collection of songs adapted from the works of various classic and contemporary poets, including Charles Causley, Robert Graves and Gerard Manley Hopkins. The evening will give the audience a unique insight into the project prior to the album’s release in Spring 2010. The album will be Merchant’s first new studio recording in seven years and her first for Nonesuch Records. Tickets for this event are free but advance booking is essential.

Wed Nov 18, 2009 Natalie Merchant at Free Word Free Word Centre, London
60 Farringdon Rd, London EC1 (Tube: Farringdon)
www.freewordonline.com
Doors: 6:00pm | Event: 6:30pm
Tickets: free, available from mail
Advance booking essential

Throughout her career Natalie Merchant has had tremendous popular and critical success. She has earned a place among America’s most respected recording artists with a reputation for being a songwriter of quality and a captivating performer. Q has called her ‘Among the most compelling and distinctive voices of the last decade,’ while Vogue has said she is ‘One of the most successful and enduring alternative artists to emerge from the eighties – intact and uncompromised.’

Merchant began her musical career in 1981 as the lead vocalist and lyricist of the multi-platinum band 10,000 Maniacs. In 1994 she began her solo career with a self-produced debut album, Tigerlily (1995), which sold more than four million copies. Throughout her career Merchant has collaborated with a wide range of artists, including REM, Daniel Lanois, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, David Byrne, Philip Glass, Billy Bragg, Wilco, Tracy Chapman, Cowboy Junkies and Ryan Adams.
Further details about the forthcoming album and international tour dates will be announced shortly. Dates already confirmed include an appearance at the opening of this year’s London Jazz Festival on November 13, a performance at London’s Conway Hall on November 16, and a concert at Celtic Connections in Glasgow on January 28.