AppSummerFest: An Evening with Natalie Merchant with Western Piedmont Symphony

“An artist with a singular voice and vision. Time has only amplified the power of Merchant’s music.” —Mojo

“One of the most successful and enduring alternative artists to emerge from the eighties intact and uncompromised.” —Vogue

In celebration of her ninth studio album, Keep Your Courage, ’80s superstar singer-songwriter Natalie Merchant comes to Boone, accompanied by Hickory, NC’s Western Piedmont Symphony.

Merchant writes in her album’s liner notes, “The songs contained within this album were written and recorded during the global pandemic that began in the winter of 2019 and is in its fifth wave as I write, in the autumn of 2022. It has been, and continues to be, a period of great flux and fear on every level: global, national, communal, familial, personal. But this is not an album about the coronavirus or the chaos it caused. For the most part, this is an album about the human heart.” She continues. “The word ‘courage’ has its root in the Latin word for heart, cor, and we see it over and over in many languages: le coeur, il cuore, o coração, el corazón. This is a song cycle that maps the journey of a courageous heart.”