The race for tickets begins: Joni Mitchell will perform first headlining show in decades
Bobby McFerrin sings as Joni Mitchell and Richard Manuel perform to the audience at Madison Square Garden in New York on Monday, September 10, 2019. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
Bobby McFerrin sings as Joni Mitchell and Richard Manuel perform to the audience at Madison Square Garden in New York on Monday, September 10, 2019. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
New York (CNN) — The annual tradition at the Metropolitan Opera — Joni Mitchell performing on opening night — is at an end.
The conductor and two pianists will wrap up the show Sunday, having created a stir with the announcement in an Aug. 16 email that Mitchell would end her concert performance at the Garden with an encore.
After Mitchell’s second encore, she said in a statement released afterward, the show would be her last “until at least the year 2028.”
“For me, performing every year is a privilege,” she wrote. “I will miss you Garden, and our beautiful fans.”
And like magic, her last performance in the Garden also marked the end of an era.
More: The Joni Mitchell story is filled with ups and downs, but it’s ultimately this:
New York (CNN) — “I’d like to tell you I am Joni Mitchell,” she began, then segued into an a cappella version of “The Lonesome West.”
It wasn’t the first time the singer and songwriter had gone into a solo acoustic performance without a band. And certainly, it was the first time she had done so on Broadway.
And yet, Mitchell would not be just a single musician.
She would be two: pianist Richard Manuel and songwriter Mitchell himself.
Richard Manuel and Joni Mitchell, who sang and played together for decades, were back together again on Broadway for a one-night-only concert performance at the Metropolitan Opera in New York on Monday, Sept. 10.
Manuel, known for his flamenco guitar stylings, made the rare leap to perform without a band, in a solo piano performance at the Garden before Mitchell took the stage to sing her hit song “You May Be Right.”