Anaïs Mitchell presents
Hadestown
Hadestown
Audio / Video
Gallery
About
From a 200-year-old farmhouse in rural Vermont, Anaïs Mitchell writes songs
that are as intimate as conversations and as rich in detail as short stories.
With three full length critically acclaimed albums under her belt, including
‘Hadestown’ which received sensational reviews from all corners such as The
Guardian, Times, Rolling Stone and NME, Mitchell has played hundreds
of shows across the world, including performances and tours with Emmylou
Harris, Bon Iver, Richard Thompson, Ani diFranco, the Low Anthem,
Shawn Colvin and Josh Ritter among others. Mitchell is that rare musician
who is equally comfortable wielding an acoustic guitar alone onstage, or
scripting a vast operatic journey into the underworld.
In 2004, Mitchell made her debut record, ‘Hymns for the Exiled’, produced by long-standing collaborator Michael Chorney. A copy of the record found its way to Ani DiFranco, who offered to release her next album, The Brightness, and later a collaboration with Rachel Ries, ‘The Country EP’. The following few years saw Mitchell continuing to play shows around the world, while simultaneously working on ‘Hadestown’, her most ambitious project to date - an epic “folk opera” retelling of the Orpheus myth. The piece began as a live performance created in collaboration once more with Michael Chorney who arranged and orchestrated the songs, and fellow Vermont director Ben t. Matchstick. In their neck of the woods—TV-less by choice, far from big cities, in a land of radical politics and culture—making your own entertainment, and getting your friends and neighbors to help you flesh it out, is the only way to go. After fine-tuning the show, the trio gathered a cast of two dozen, commandeered a silver-spraypainted schoolbus, and hit the road (through several blizzards) for a couple of ragtag DIY tours of New England.
The next logical step? Hadestown, the album. Mitchell’s songs and Chorney’s orchestral arrangements were re-imagined by producer Todd Sickafoose and performed by a dream-team lineup including Ani DiFranco, Justin Vernon (Bon Iver), Greg Brown, and Mitchell herself, among others. The resulting album caught the attention of critics and music fans across the world, receiving five star reviews and raves from some of the most esteemed publications around.
“Multi-layered, sensationally good and endlessly absorbing…an extraordinary album.” THE SUNDAY TIMES, UK, ‘Hadestown‘, CD of the Week *****
“Mitchell is both adorable and badass! Her songs are these very serious—though, crucially, not self-serious—masterpieces, haunting little poems set to gutsy finger-picked guitar and delivered with a sweet smile….just fantastic” PASTE
“Mitchell has created something joyful and witty that yields more with every listen” THE GUARDIAN, UK *****
“Hadestown is nothing short of incredible, whether you extract individual tracks like ‘Wedding Song” or listen to the endearing tale as an artfully rollicking whole. Mitchell has always been good, but “Hadestown” is her Odyssey” NME 9/10
’Hadestown’ has made Mitchell an Americana princess” UNCUT *****
...a superb and frequently entertaining re-envisioning of a classic tale that also happens to be a ripping good story. ... It's a surpassingly strange and moving work, quite unlike any music I've ever encountered, and further evidence that weird can be wonderful, particularly when the lyrics are as insightful and the music as beautiful as this." – PASTE.COM
"Somewhere between The Who’s Tommy and Sufjan Stephens’ entire body of work lies Anaïs Mitchell’s new folk opera, Hadestown (Righteous Babe). Whatever its inspiration, Hadestown is the first effort to emerge from this morass of good intention that truly holds up on both the musical and narrative level." – AMERICAN SONGWRITER
In 2004, Mitchell made her debut record, ‘Hymns for the Exiled’, produced by long-standing collaborator Michael Chorney. A copy of the record found its way to Ani DiFranco, who offered to release her next album, The Brightness, and later a collaboration with Rachel Ries, ‘The Country EP’. The following few years saw Mitchell continuing to play shows around the world, while simultaneously working on ‘Hadestown’, her most ambitious project to date - an epic “folk opera” retelling of the Orpheus myth. The piece began as a live performance created in collaboration once more with Michael Chorney who arranged and orchestrated the songs, and fellow Vermont director Ben t. Matchstick. In their neck of the woods—TV-less by choice, far from big cities, in a land of radical politics and culture—making your own entertainment, and getting your friends and neighbors to help you flesh it out, is the only way to go. After fine-tuning the show, the trio gathered a cast of two dozen, commandeered a silver-spraypainted schoolbus, and hit the road (through several blizzards) for a couple of ragtag DIY tours of New England.
The next logical step? Hadestown, the album. Mitchell’s songs and Chorney’s orchestral arrangements were re-imagined by producer Todd Sickafoose and performed by a dream-team lineup including Ani DiFranco, Justin Vernon (Bon Iver), Greg Brown, and Mitchell herself, among others. The resulting album caught the attention of critics and music fans across the world, receiving five star reviews and raves from some of the most esteemed publications around.
“Multi-layered, sensationally good and endlessly absorbing…an extraordinary album.” THE SUNDAY TIMES, UK, ‘Hadestown‘, CD of the Week *****
“Mitchell is both adorable and badass! Her songs are these very serious—though, crucially, not self-serious—masterpieces, haunting little poems set to gutsy finger-picked guitar and delivered with a sweet smile….just fantastic” PASTE
“Mitchell has created something joyful and witty that yields more with every listen” THE GUARDIAN, UK *****
“Hadestown is nothing short of incredible, whether you extract individual tracks like ‘Wedding Song” or listen to the endearing tale as an artfully rollicking whole. Mitchell has always been good, but “Hadestown” is her Odyssey” NME 9/10
’Hadestown’ has made Mitchell an Americana princess” UNCUT *****
...a superb and frequently entertaining re-envisioning of a classic tale that also happens to be a ripping good story. ... It's a surpassingly strange and moving work, quite unlike any music I've ever encountered, and further evidence that weird can be wonderful, particularly when the lyrics are as insightful and the music as beautiful as this." – PASTE.COM
"Somewhere between The Who’s Tommy and Sufjan Stephens’ entire body of work lies Anaïs Mitchell’s new folk opera, Hadestown (Righteous Babe). Whatever its inspiration, Hadestown is the first effort to emerge from this morass of good intention that truly holds up on both the musical and narrative level." – AMERICAN SONGWRITER