Cody Fry Arranges a Brand New Sound with Ben Rector and the National Symphony Orchestra
Run, Don’t Walk, to Your Nearest POPS Show
If you’ve ever tuned in for the nationwide broadcast of Labor Day, Independence Day, or Memorial Day, you’ve likely seen the Washington, DC-based National Symphony Orchestra (NSO) perform on the US Capitol Lawn. The NSO is a 96-member Orchestra, founded in 1931, performing all around the nation’s capital, including for performances of national significance. As an artistic affiliate of the Kennedy Center, many of their indoor performances happen in the venue’s Concert Hall. That includes tonight, where we find them performing alongside Ben Rector and Cody Fry.
While orchestras are generally found performing classical music, playing alongside popular artists is nothing new. These genre-mixing performances are known as POPS, where pop, rock, rap, and other genres of music are arranged and played alongside the orchestra musicians. The NSO in Washington, DC performs about 150 shows per year, and roughly 20% of them are POPS shows. Notable past collaborators with the NSO include Common, Kendrick Lamar, Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead, and many others. These shows bridge a gap between classical and pop, which takes the edge off of typical orchestra-backed performances, and gives music fans a chance to hear their favorite artists in a different light.
NSO Artistic Administrator Justin Ellis described how tonight’s show came together; Cody’s viral take on the Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby” and original “I Hear a Symphony” caught Justin’s attention, who invited Cody to play on the NSO DECLASSIFIED series with Ben Folds. That show’s success led to Cody being invited back for a full-on POPS performance. Cody brought his friend Ben Rector along and fully arranged both his and Ben’s songs to be played alongside the orchestra. After two rehearsals with the NSO, the duo started the first of two nights of performances in Washington, DC.
The show started with Ben on guitar and Cody on piano, performing Ben’s “Dream On” off of his 2022 album The Joy of Music. The two performers alternated instruments between songs, while the NSO would take the lead with the rest of Cody’s arrangements. The near-hundred musicians on stage played songs from both of the singers’ catalogs, like Cody’s popular “I Hear a Symphony” and Ben’s “Loving You is Easy.” The duo peppered in a few covers; first, Shania Twain’s “You’re Still The One.” Then, after giving the crowd a quick vocal lesson, Fry performed his popular performance of “Eleanor Rigby” while the audience helped with backup vocals. The two singers came out for an encore with Ben’s widely popular “Brand New,” and concluded with a symphonic performance of Ben’s 2013 “Sailboat,” a similar version of which can be found on YouTube here.
Ben and Cody’s between-song exchanges led to more audible laughter than you would expect from a show featuring an orchestra. Before Shania Twain’s “You’re Still the One,” the duo asked the crowd “If you don’t know the song, what’s wrong with you?” Later, Ben jokingly shamed a man celebrating his 40th birthday (Rector is 36) and effortlessly circled back to him later in the night, mid-song, to remind him of his old age.
Ben hits the road in a few months for his nationwide Old Friends Acoustic tour, alongside Steven Day and Jordy Searcy. The tour kicks off March 9, at the Moore Theatre in Seattle, WA. Michigan residents will get a chance to see Cody Fry in a similar format, when he performs with the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra on March 24th. The Kennedy Center POPS schedule is on their website, including The Music of Star Wars, which goes on sale later in February.
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Ben Rector – https://www.benrectormusic.com/
Cody Fry – www.codyfry.com
National Symphony Orchestra – https://www.kennedy-center.org/nso/home/
Kennedy Center – https://www.kennedy-center.org/
