UAB’s Alys Stephens Performing Arts Center (ASC) will present a pairing of two of today’s favorite folk-rock singer-songwriters, Mary Chapin Carpenter and Shawn Colvin, in a special acoustic show to be held at 7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 28, 2013.
 |
Both of these acclaimed artists have graced the ASC stage with their own bands, but this will be their first duo performance. Longtime friends, Carpenter and Colvin will share the stage as an intimate duo. They will perform material spanning their vast catalogues and cover some of their favorite songs. The show will take place in the ASC’s Jemison Concert Hall, 1200 10th Ave. South. Tickets are $63.50, $55.50 and $45.50. Call 205-975-2787 or visit www.AlysStephens.org.
Carpenter, a five-time Grammy Award winner who has won two Country Music Association Awards and two Academy of Country Music Awards, was inducted into the Nashville Songwriter’s Hall of Fame in 2012. She has been through enormous difficulties in recent years, and her newest release, “Ashes and Roses,” is an album about grief, loss and getting to the other side of pain. The songs on Carpenter’s 12th album — which may be her strongest yet — find optimism, renewal and peace in letting go and moving forward in life.
 |
Colvin is a three-time Grammy Award winner. “All Fall Down,” her latest release, was produced by guitarist Buddy Miller and recorded at his home studio in Nashville. The album addresses the dissolution of a relationship with Colvin’s hallmark dry-eyed candor. The frankness in her work is tempered by humor and sensuality, as well as a gift for finding strong, simple melodies. Though she calls “All Fall Down” a “break-up” album, it is “not quite about reflection as much as it is about working through something painful,” Colvin said of the work. “It portrays a sense of loss, redemption and resolution.”
The Carpenter/Colvin concert will not be the first — or last — great artist combination presented by the ASC this season. Chick Corea and Gary Burton shared the stage, along with Harlem String Quartet, for a sublime jazz-classical fusion performance in January. Still to come this season are the Preservation Hall Jazz Band and The Del McCoury Band on Saturday, March 9; Noé Inui and Vassilis Varvaresos on Friday, April 26; and Amy Grant and Vince Gill on Thursday, June 6.