After many years of trying, the 2016 Lowell Summer Music Series presents a legendary folk musician. Mary Chapin Carpenter will be making her first appearance at the Series on Friday, June 17th!

“For nearly thirty years strong, on many albums like Come On Come On, Stones in the Road, Between Here and Gone, and Ashes and Roses, Mary Chapin Carpenter has earned the trust of her audience through her willingness to look deep into herself and share joys and sorrows, good times and bad. That honesty, that quiet fearlessness, reaches a startling new level on The Things That We Are Made Of. These eleven songs communicate with the plain-spokenness of handwritten, heartfelt letters from a confiding friend; this is art without the artifice. The result is music that is likely to be as powerfully moving as any you have ever heard.

Mary Chapin Carpenter (Official Photo)

“Because of the consistency of its themes, the cool introspection of Carpenter’s voice, and the mid-too slow tempos, the album unfolds like one long, mesmerizing song. Within that rich coherence, Cobb suggested subtle touches that keep every new hearing fresh. “He’s very old school in that he likes hooks and choruses,” Carpenter says, “so he would indicate a riff or something else and say, ‘I’d like to hear that again,’ so the record doesn’t drag. And the way we sequenced it, we take you on a journey.”

“The Things That We Are Made Of offers listeners a significant gift – an unguarded look into the beating heart of one of the strongest singer-songwriters of our time. In an intriguing way, Carpenter occasionally sounds as if she stands in the same relationship to the album that we do, that having created it, she is still plumbing it for meaning and for sustenance. “I feel as if I’m still trying to come up with a reliable way of talking about what this album is about,” Carpenter says. “I haven’t finished thinking about it. It’s part of an ongoing conversation that I’m having with myself about my life. But if you’re not trying to connect in some way to the world, what else is there? All I can hope for is that people connect to it. That’s the most rewarding part of doing this work – believing that you’re speaking to what we all feel.”

Tickets for the Mary Chapin Carpenter show are priced at $44 in advance (fee-free!), $50 on the day of the show (if available) and children 12 and under are always free courtesy of Eastern Bank. There are also premium seats – beach chairs are provided by the Series – set in two rows directly in front of the stage for $144. Tickets go on sale at 9 a.m. on Friday, March 19th through Lowell Summer Music Series.

For those of you who are unaware of the  Series, or if you are aware of it but have never attended a show there, it is an outdoor (weather permitting) concert series held on National Park Service grounds in Lowell, Massachusetts. The Series is not-for-profit, which helps keep the ticket prices reasonable.

Surrounding Boarding House Park are old mill buildings, part of the Lowell National Historical Park, which you can tour if you arrive early enough. They provide an unusual setting for an evening of great music and ambiance.

The Series generally runs from late June to early September.

This Series is dear to my heart. I have been a season pass holder since 2007 and it is one of the highlights of the year (and of summer in particular) for me. Many lasting friendships have been made there. I expect this will be another excellent year!

I will post additional announcements for the Series as they are made.

Shows announced to date are:

June 10 (Friday) – Patty Griffin

June 11 (Saturday) – Guster

June 17 (Friday) – Mary Chapin Carpenter

July 16 (Saturday) – Colin Hay

July 23 (Saturday) – case/lang/veirs

August 13 (Saturday) – Dr. Dog

September 1 (Thursday) – ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic

September 3 (Saturday) – The B-52s