Joan Baez will celebrate her 75th birthday on Saturday, January 27 at the Beacon Theatre.
The special event will honor her legendary 50 plus years in music in an intimate career spanning live performance. Baez will perform alongside fellow artists and friends, including: Jackson Browne, Indigo Girls, Emmylou Harris, Judy Collins, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Damien Rice, Nano Stern and David Bromberg. Additional acts will be announced shortly. The concert is being recorded and produced for television by Thirteen Productions LLC for WNET New York as part of the Great Performances series on PBS.
Looking forward to the event, Mary Chapin Carpenter remarks: "She has been a mentor, an inspiration and a role model for anyone who ever picked up a guitar and wanted to believe they could do more than just sing pretty songs. She has showed multiple generations that music can move and inspire as well as be a force for courage, solidarity, fellowship and justice. To be able to celebrate her 75th birthday with her in New York City is a dream evening, and I think I will feel 17 again for much of it."
Emmylou Harris adds: "Joan's stunningly beautiful voice stirred an entire generation, and opened our hearts to the plight of so many among us. She truly changed the world for the better. Happy birthday to a great and compassionate artist."
In other news, Baez was presented with Amnesty International's "Ambassador of Conscience Award" at a ceremony in Berlin on May 21, 2015. The award is the organization's top honor and recognizes those who have shown exceptional leadership in the fight for human rights through their life and work.
Baez was further honored this year when Joan Baez, her break-through 1960 debut album, was selected by the Library of Congress as one of its 25 annual recordings to be preserved in the National Recording Registry. The Library of Congress stated that the album "preserves for posterity powerful performances from the Harvard Square coffeehouse repertoire that brought Baez to prominence as the folk-revival movement was arriving on the national stage."
JOAN BAEZ CONFIRMED TOUR DATES
January 27 New York, NY Beacon Theatre
January 30 Ann Arbor, MI Hill Auditorium
February 27 Toronto, ON Koerner Hall
February 28 Ithaca, NY State Theater
March 1 Concord, NH Capitol Center for the Arts
March 3 New Haven, CT Shubert Theatre
March 5 Burlington, VT Flynn Center
March 6 Englewood, NJ Bergen PAC
March 8 Red Bank, NJ Count Basie Theatre
March 9 Frederick, MD Weinberg Center for the Arts
March 12 Lexington, KY Lexington Opera House
March 16 Charleston, SC Charleston Music Hall
March 17 Atlanta, GA Atlanta Symphony Hall
March 19 Birmingham, AL Alys Stephens Performing Arts Center
March 20 Durham, NC Page Auditorium at Duke University
March 23 Wilmington, DE The Grand
March 25 Albany, NY The Egg
March 26 Buffalo, NY Asbury Hall