Ben Folds weds Boston Pops and Young Stars June 3

At Symphony Hall on June 3, 2026, the Boston Pops pivoted from showcasing Massachusetts Young Artists Competition winners to backing Ben Folds’s quirky piano pop—delivering a night that mixed baroque precision, teenage virtuosity, and symphonic muscle behind o

When Ben Folds stepped up to the piano at Symphony Hall on Wednesday night. he didn’t stay put like a man merely joining an orchestra. He stood close enough to Keith Lockhart and his players that the atmosphere felt shared—though Folds spent much of the first number fidgeting or with his hands in his pockets. as if the proximity was testing him.

The evening, though, belonged to the Boston Pops’ knack for turning on a dime.

Before the rock-leaning piano set even began. the orchestra accompanied the 2026 Fidelity Investments Young Artists Competition winners—four high school students from Massachusetts—introducing them through a short video built to make you lean in. One of them, the show’s own playful premise insisted, eats a banana before every performance. Then they were each brought onto the stage. one by one. in a way that made it feel less like a competition recital and more like meeting future household names.

That setup matters, because the performances didn’t behave like “future” talent. They arrived with control that can silence a room quickly—and keep it quiet long after the last note.

Ruth Anne Sowa, a Phillips Academy senior, opened with “Piangerò la sorte mia” from Handel’s Giulio Cesare. Conductor Keith Lockhart introduced her with a wink—“She’s from Meffa”—and her soprano immediately lifted from the first moment. She sustained it for more than seven minutes. gliding through impressive trills and showing a rich vibrato that didn’t fade even when the line grew demanding.

Next came Claire Park, a Winsor School sophomore, performing “Una donna a quindici anni” from Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte. Her voice carried the same kind of expressiveness, but it was her attitude that stood out. In the video, Park explained the character she plays—an older teen offering cheeky dating advice to younger girls. Onstage. even without the plot detail. the sly. insouciant movements and the facial expressions that accompanied her agile vocals made the character legible.

Then Ethan Liu—also a Phillips Academy student—played “Return to 老家 [Hometown],” a piece he composed himself. He played saxophone with remarkable fluidity, clearly feeling every note. As the orchestra quieted toward the close, Liu remained totally solo, adding evocative jazz flourishes under Lockhart’s watchful eye.

The final winner. Shixun Song from Phillips Academy. had the kind of calm that looks almost startling when it shows up in a young performer. Song glided through the third movement of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor. The light touch mattered: he guided the piece from quiet moments into frantic bursts without losing his poise.

It wasn’t just the teenagers who impressed. On the Rachmaninoff movement in particular, the orchestra’s synergy came through as a kind of proof-of-concept—how a crack ensemble can lock with a gifted soloist and still leave room for surprise.

After each student’s performance. the crowd offered loud ovations. with Lockhart joking after Sowa’s huge applause that there were “a lot of baroque opera fans.” When the ovations brought the competition winners back into view for one last time. it also set the stage for how Folds would react when he finally took over.

After intermission, Folds came on and joined the orchestra’s world rather than replacing it. He said he was genuinely “humbled,” adding, “I feel smaller playing after them.”

The first tune—“But Wait There’s More”—came off as a warm-up in tone. a cautionary missive Folds wrote about the COVID-19 pandemic and the threat of a second Trump administration. Even in that opener. the Symphony Hall acoustics did the heavy lifting. with Folds’s vocals blending with the accompaniment in a way that made the song feel both intimate and big.

Tim Harrington and Paul Wright of the Boston indie-pop duo Tall Heights provided background vocals.

Then came “Capable of Anything,” a rollicking chamber rock number from Folds’s lush 2015 album So There. The moment the Pops leaned in. the evening’s underlying theme snapped into focus: the majesty of a full orchestra didn’t flatten Folds’s offbeat charm—it sharpened it. What had felt relaxed in his solo setting earlier in the night—Folds previously performed at The Cabot in Beverly. devising his setlist in real time from requests thrown at him on paper airplanes—took on more urgency here. even as he looked delighted to be surrounded by other musicians.

It helped, too, that most of what Folds played came from later in his near four-decade career. The show emphasized his growing complexity, including the fact that he composed a Concerto for Piano and Orchestra commissioned by the Nashville Symphony Orchestra in 2014.

Not every song, though, landed with equal ease. On “Cologne,” Folds said he “wrote on stage on drugs” (the kind for illness, not recreation). The orchestration on that track, the performance made clear, felt more grafted on than intrinsic. And on certain others—“Landed” in particular—Folds had to work harder to push his falsetto through the roar of the accompaniment.

Still, many pairings clicked so smoothly it was hard not to hear the match as intentional. “Kristine From the 7th Grade. ” a wry commentary on toxic online relationships with people you thought you knew. kept its humor while the Pops added a minor-key undertow that made it feel genuinely menacing. When Folds asked the titular meme-thrower if she realized “this world can be wonderful too. ” a soft strum of a harp—described in the room as sounding like parting clouds—brought a different kind of beauty.

The orchestra also shaped the comedic moments. A gorgeous gonzo overture powered “Zak and Sara. ” and “Effington” arrived as a late-show highlight. driven by Paul Buckmaster’s arrangement that made the (probably fictitious but should be real) town of Effington feel vivid behind Folds’s lyrics. “I’ve got this movie in my mind of Effington. and the soundtrack to it sounds like this. ” Folds sang as a soundtrack swell built under him.

Folds didn’t keep the banter minimal. He offered trademark stories, saying, “This was in every way a Plan B,” and recalling that he had originally hoped to be a professional timpanist.

He also used his voice for something bigger. Later. Folds gave an impassioned speech urging the audience to support the National Symphony Orchestra. describing it as having fallen between the cracks of problems facing its home. the Kennedy Center. Lockhart mentioned the center as well. accentuating its original name—no other name stuck onto the front—bringing the room to thunderous applause.

Folds framed it as people working together for a shared good. “People working together for the greater good — the only place you see that happen is on stage. ” he said. calling it a “symbol of civilization.” He added that if the problems facing the NSO were any indication. “civilization is in trouble.”.

The encore brought the night to a quieter kind of impact: a sad and beautiful version of “The Luckiest.” The strings and woodwinds added a tremulous undertone to Folds’s repetition of “I am … I am … I am … the luckiest.”

By the end. the review circled back to a simple. hard-to-argue point—one the Pops seemed to confirm on every turn. The Boston Pops Orchestra that accompanied Folds on Wednesday night was the same one that accompanied Broadway’s Leslie Odom. Jr. last month, and would accompany art-rock auteur St. Vincent the very next night. “In short,” Folds essentially said through the evening’s shape, “they are clearly capable of anything.”.

When he had joked earlier that “one kind has an orchestra. and the other is crap. ” it landed less like provocation and more like a defense of institutions that still make moments like this possible. And with Folds saying the world feels like it’s headed “to absolute crap. ” there was comfort in watching a caliber of musicianship—built for the long game—still exist in real time.

Ben Folds Boston Pops Symphony Hall Young Artists Competition Fidelity Investments Keith Lockhart Ethan Liu Ruth Anne Sowa Claire Park Shixun Song Rachmaninoff Handel Mozart National Symphony Orchestra Kennedy Center