Ben Folds will perform two Hamer Hall concerts with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra in January as part of a five-city Australian orchestral tour.
by Paul Cashmere
Ben Folds will reunite with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra for the first time in six years when he performs at Arts Centre Melbourne’s Hamer Hall on Friday 29 and Saturday 30 January 2027. The two concerts will form part of a national orchestral tour taking Folds to Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney, Hobart and Adelaide between 22 January and 19 February.
The Hamer Hall performances will see Folds revisit his catalogue with the MSO, conducted by Principal Guest Conductor Benjamin Northey. The Melbourne concerts will also open the MSO’s 2027 concert year, extending a relationship between Folds and the orchestra that has developed through several collaborations over the past two decades.
Folds will perform with five Australian symphony orchestras during the tour, including the Canberra Symphony Orchestra, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra and Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. The format reflects a significant part of Folds’ career, in which his piano-based songwriting has increasingly intersected with orchestral performance and composition.
“Sharing the stage with an orchestra as my band is an honour I don’t take lightly,” Folds said. “I consider them among the finest musicians in the world and together we offer audiences a musical experience like no other.”
“As a student of the orchestra, I sincerely believe they are a shining example of what we can accomplish in society when we all work in concert and harmony for a greater good.”
The Melbourne performances are particularly notable within the MSO’s history with Folds. Their previous collaborations have established an ongoing connection between the American songwriter and the Australian orchestra, with the 2027 concerts marking their first performances together since 2021.
Folds has spent much of his career moving between alternative pop, piano-driven rock and classical music. He first gained international recognition in the 1990s as the frontman of Ben Folds Five, the North Carolina trio whose combination of piano, bass and drums produced songs including Brick, Philosophy, Army and Song For The Dumped.
Following Ben Folds Five, he established a solo career with albums including Rockin’ The Suburbs, Supersunnyspeedgraphic, the LP, Way To Normal, So There and What Matters Most. His work has also extended into film, television and theatre, including original music for animated Peanuts specials.
The orchestral side of Folds’ career has become increasingly prominent. He has performed with major symphony orchestras internationally and has written substantial classical works, including his Concerto For Piano And Orchestra. His orchestral collaborations have allowed material originally conceived around piano and voice to be presented within larger symphonic arrangements.
That work also informed his role at Washington’s Kennedy Center, where Folds served as Artistic Advisor to the National Symphony Orchestra from 2017 until his resignation in 2025. During his tenure, he developed the DECLASSIFIED series, which placed classical repertoire alongside contemporary artists and explored connections between musical traditions.
Away from performance, Folds has maintained a strong interest in music education and arts access. In 2022 he established a charitable music education initiative in North Carolina providing funding and keyboards to organisations offering free or affordable piano lessons to school-age children from economically disadvantaged households. He has also advocated for arts funding, music education and music therapy in the United States.
His return to Australia follows his 2026 Ben Folds & A Piano tour, which placed the songwriter alone at the piano for a series of national performances. The 2027 concerts will instead put the orchestra at the centre of the musical setting, with five Australian ensembles involved across the tour.
For the MSO, the Hamer Hall concerts will sit within a 2027 season that includes major symphonic repertoire, Australian premieres, new commissions and collaborations across different musical disciplines. The Folds performances provide another example of the orchestra’s continuing engagement with artists whose work sits outside traditional classical programming.
Tickets for Ben Folds with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra at Hamer Hall go on sale at 10am on Friday 28 August through the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.
The national tour begins in Canberra on 22 January before moving to Melbourne, Sydney, Hobart and Adelaide.
Tour Dates
22 January, Canberra, Llewellyn Hall
23 January, Canberra, Llewellyn Hall
29 January, Melbourne, Hamer Hall
30 January, Melbourne, Hamer Hall
2 February, Sydney, Hordern Pavilion
3 February, Sydney, Hordern Pavilion
6 February, Hobart, Wrest Point
18 February, Adelaide, Her Majesty’s Theatre
19 February, Adelaide, Her Majesty’s Theatre
Ticket Details
Ben Folds with Melbourne Symphony Orchestra
Friday 29 and Saturday 30 January 2027, 7.30pm
Arts Centre Melbourne, Hamer Hall
Tickets on sale 10am Friday 28 August
https://www.mso.com.au/performance/2027-ben-folds-x-mso
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