Ward currently serves as the opening act for Josh Groban’s Harmony national tour this summer, which runs through August 2.
GHOSTLIGHT RECORDS has announced that "No One Is Alone" - the new single from Eleri Ward's upcoming album - is available on streaming and digital formats today, Friday, July 22.
Listen below!
The new album, due later this year, is a follow-up to Ward's viral hit debut acoustic folk Stephen Sondheim recording A Perfect Little Death, which was just released on vinyl.
In addition, Ward currently serves as the opening act for Josh Groban's Harmony national tour this summer, which runs through August 2. Details are at EleriWard.com.
The single "No One Is Alone" - from the Broadway music Into the Woods - is produced by Allen Tate and Eleri Ward, and arranged by Eleri Ward with a string arrangement by Ellis Ludwig-Leone.
A Perfect Little Death is an expansive folk reinvention of the one-of-a-kind Stephen Sondheim canon, rendered with ethereal, melancholic guitar arrangements. After gaining a viral TikTok following, Eleri's project was released to great acclaim and impressive streaming numbers. A Perfect Little Death was called "a harmonious marriage of musical theater and indie folk music, with hauntingly beautiful arrangements" by Forbes and "an incandescent new record, something genuinely new" from American Theater Magazine. John Platt of WFUV Radio hailed the album as a "breathtaking, life-affirming gift." It features 13 songs varying from "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd" to "Loving You" to "Take Me to the World," leading you through an acoustical Sondheim journey that evokes golden hour. Blossoming from a spontaneous Instagram cover of "Every Day a Little Death" in 2019, Eleri has now crafted this project to be her own niche at the crossroads of musical theater and indie folk music, embodied by swirling harmonies and her original point of view. All the songs on the album are produced by Eleri Ward.
Eleri recorded all of the songs in the closet of her apartment during lockdown, following many requests for an album release after posting a video of "Johanna (Reprise)" on TikTok. With over 42k views, she was immediately inspired to expand and share this project further, and the album was complete within a month. Each arrangement is singular, thoughtful, and weaves in and out of darkness and light.
Kurt Deutsch, the label's founder, says: "Eleri Ward's A Perfect Little Death is simple, haunting, and beautiful. I was deeply moved by the sheer creativity of this project, and how she blends Sondheim with a singer/songwriter aesthetic in a totally modern way. The album is one of the discoveries of the year and Ghostlight Records is thrilled to release such a distinctive recording."
Eleri Ward is a New York City-based actor, singer, and musician whose original pop music has been called "soaring" (Nexus Music Blog), "astonishing" (Rising Artists), and "dreamy" (Neon Music). Her most recent EP, Friction, was released in 2021. She has been singing and acting since she was eight years old, and has always strived to carve out her own space with the uniqueness she brings to the theater. Eleri studied songwriting at Berklee College of Music before transferring and graduating from The Boston Conservatory with a BFA in Musical Theater and an emphasis in Songwriting, which shows itself clearly in the way she has taken on the Sondheim canon. www.eleriward.com @eleriward
GHOSTLIGHT RECORDS has become the leading independent force in Original Broadway Cast Recordings - building a library of over 200 records over the past 20 years, featuring some of the most successful Broadway musicals and solo albums by Broadway's brightest stars. Founded by Grammy Award winner Kurt Deutsch, Ghostlight has won Grammy Awards for The Band's Visit, The Book of Mormon, In the Heights and Beautiful - The Carole King Musical. Ghostlight has also released solo albums from Patti LuPone, Kelli O'Hara, Sutton Foster, Billy Porter, and more. The label continues to support the new generation of musical theater composers and has developed extensive relationships with Jason Robert Brown, Michael John LaChiusa, and David Yazbek, as well as Lin-Manuel Miranda, Pasek & Paul, Tom Kitt, Joe Iconis, and Shaina Taub. Ghostlight Records is part of the Arts Music division at Warner Music Group.
1. Johanna (Reprise)
2. Every Day a Little Death
3. Pretty Women
4. Children Will Listen
5. Loving You
6. Finishing the Hat
7. Send in the Clowns
8. Losing My Mind
9. In Buddy's Eyes
10. Take Me to the World
11. The Ballad of Sweeney Todd
12. Being Alive
13. Sunday
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