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Duke Arts Presents

Stephin Merritt + Mark Eitzel

Wednesday, July 30, 2014 | 7:30 pm

Baldwin Auditorium


Stephin Merritt releases albums under the band names the Magnetic Fields, the 6ths, the Gothic Archies, and Future Bible Heroes. Merritt has written and recorded ten Magnetic Fields albums, including his popular 1999 album, 69 Love Songs. The song “The Book of Love” was covered by Peter Gabriel and has become an unlikely wedding favorite. Merritt composed original music and lyrics for several music theater pieces, including an off-Broadway stage musical of Neil Gaiman’s novel Coraline, for which he received an Obie Award. Merritt scored the academy award nominated film “Pieces of April” (dir. Peter Hedges). In 2012, Merritt released a Magnetic Fields album, Love at the Bottom of the Sea, and in 2013 he released a Future Bible Heroes album, Partygoing, both on Merge Records. Currently he is composing for theater, television, and film, as well as album projects.

One of the most celebrated and idiosyncratic American songwriters of his generation, Mark Eitzel is best known as the leader of the iconic indie rock band American Music Club, who spun beautifully chaotic webs of guitar from Eitzel’s gloomy but compassionate studies of lost souls and alcohol; since striking out on his own, Eitzel has embraced a number of different musical approaches, while his witty but downcast lyrical style has remained constant.

**Music in the Gardens presentations are excluded from Pick-4 & Age-30-&-Under discounts.**
Duke Performances’ 2014 Music in the Gardens is made possible, in part, with support from Duke Continuing Studies, Duke Summer Session & Merge Records.