The Magnetic Fields

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2023 Concert Series sponsored by

One of the most important and representative groups of the indie rock genre.

—AllMusic

The Magnetic Fields are the music of songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist Stephin Merritt, who lives and records in New York City. Adept at computer music programming and production, Merritt records his own albums and plays almost everything on them, with help from cellist Sam Davol, banjo player and guitarist John Woo, percussionist and pianist Claudia Gonson, and singer Shirley Simms.

To date, Merritt has written and recorded 12 Magnetic Fields albums, and his most celebrated works have been epic in scope: 1999’s beloved 69 Love Songs and 2017’s critically acclaimed 50 Song Memoir, which chronicled the first 50 years of Merritt’s life with one song per year. The band’s latest album, Quickies, released in 2021 to critical acclaim, is 28 short bursts of melody and lyrics sketching in dreams and desires, reveries, and wishful thinking.

Merritt has also composed original music and lyrics for the theater, including an off-Broadway stage musical of Neil Gaiman’s novel Coraline, for which he received an Obie Award. In 2014, Merritt composed songs and background music for the first musical episode of This American Life.