#eleri ward

[made-youlook]

i just love mizisua

[more-than-tender-curiosity]

Eleri Ward as Jordan Baker from Gatsby: An American Myth, presumably seeing nick for the first time I guess,,

[lucillewalterblack]

from Charlotte MacInnes’s Instagram

[musicalrecs]

Got another album rec for y'all. This one is Eleri Ward's acoustic Sondheim. It's cliche, but she really makes the songs sound different from how you've heard them before, giving you more insight to Sondheim's melodies (which I often find to be too buried in his complex everything else). Anyway, really pretty music, check it out.

[d-criss-news]

Via Stella Cole's Instagram Story (December 9th, 2022)

[homoqueerjewhobbit]

Well well well, if it isn't Sondheim covers in my favorite genre, folk. This was made for me and I'm obsessed.

[garethllane]

Maybe this is an unpopular opinion, but I think the success of Eleri Ward speaks to something I really hate about musical theatre/musical theatre fandom of the last decade or so. That being this underlying level of shame or embarrassment in enjoying musical theatre to the point that there is this desperate attempt to intellectualize it or dress it up with an Urban Outfitters, hipster aesthetic. (There’s also that weird way people make fun of the shows they like instead of liking something earnestly and honestly, God forbid! But that’s a different rant of its own).

I was trying to figure out why her music has such appeal. Maybe I’m wrong, but I think the appeal is that her music is basically Phoebe Bridgers Meets Sondheim? Like, blending the intelligence of Sondheim with the “indie cred” of Phoebe Bridgers let’s nerdy theatre kids feel like discerning, pretentious music aficionados who didn’t spend their entire adolescence listening exclusively to cast recordings. But to me it’s like Eva Cassidy levels of corniness. Like, Starbucks compilation CD corny. And that’s coming from someone who likes Eva Cassidy and Starbucks compilation CDs (especially the holiday ones) but knows that it is not good music and knows that I should be a little of ashamed of it but like it too much to care.

I feel like acoustic covers of showtunes are just a rebrand or a retread of those albums that are like, “[Broadway Star] Sings the Songs of [Golden Age Composer]” with vaguely jazzy/soulful arrangements and are usually recorded live at 54 Below. (And for the record Kate Baldwin’s album of Sheldon Harnick is the worst of them all. Like…who asked for that?)

[fuckyeahstephensondheim]

Ghostlight Records will release the new album A PERFECT LITTLE DEATH by SUF/SOND – the brainchild of New York singer/songwriter Eleri Ward – in streaming and digital formats on Friday, June 4. SUF/SOND is a whirling combination of Ward’s two deep loves: the expansive one-of-a-kind canon of Stephen Sondheim, and the ethereal, melancholic sounds of Sufjan Stevens. Blossoming from a spontaneous Instagram cover of “Every Day a Little Death” captioned “Sufjan on Sondheim” in 2019, Eleri has now crafted SUF/SOND 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. The album 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 the evokes golden hour. A PERFECT LITTLE DEATH is produced by Eleri Ward.