Sufjan Stevens at Bass Concert Hall

Carrie & Lowell was recorded by Stevens alongside Casey Foubert, Laura Veirs, Nedelle Torrisi, Sean Carey, Ben Lester and Thomas Bartlett and mixed by Stevens, Bartlett and Pat Dillet. Thematically the 11 songs address life and death, love and loss, and the artist’s struggle to make sense of the beauty and ugliness of love. The album is named for Stevens’ mother and stepfather and is a return to Stevens’ folk roots.

A singer-songwriter currently living in Brooklyn, NY, Stevens’ preoccupation with epic concepts has motivated two state records (Michigan & Illinois), a collection of sacred and biblical songs (Seven Swans), an electronic album for the animals of the Chinese zodiac (Enjoy Your Rabbit), two Christmas box sets (Songs for Christmas, vol. 1-5 and Silver & Gold, vol. 6-10), and a BAM-commissioned programmatic tone poem for the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway (The BQE). In 2010 Stevens released an expansive EP (All Delighted People) and the full length The Age of Adz, a collection of songs partly inspired by the outsider artist Royal Robertson.

Stevens recently collaborated with New York City Ballet choreographer and dancer Justin Peck on Year of the Rabbit, a modern dance program set to a classical orchestration of Enjoy Your Rabbit and an original orchestral score commissioned for Peck’s ballet Everywhere We Go. Stevens’ second BAM commission Round-Up, an instrumental accompaniment to slow-motion rodeo footage, recently premiered at BAM’s Harvey Theater.