Eleri Ward (born August 10, 1994)[1][2] is an American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and actress, best known for her Sufjan Stevens-inspired indie folk renditions of the works of composer Stephen Sondheim. Since garnering attention with covers posted to Instagram and TikTok, Ward has released two albums in this vein, A Perfect Little Death (2021) and Keep a Tender Distance (2022), both on Sh-K-Boom Records' Ghostlight imprint, as well as two self-released pop EPs, Prism (2020) and Friction (2021). In summer 2022, she toured with singer Josh Groban. As a stage actress, she has performed in productions for The Muny and MCC Theater.
Ward studied songwriting at the Berklee College of Music in Boston for a year, before transferring to the Boston Conservatory at Berklee, where she graduated with a BFA in musical theatre with an emphasis in songwriting and acting.[4][10][11][6] During her second year at Boston Conservatory in 2015, Ward, feeling she had "hit a plateau" with the piano, taught herself to play guitar after buying one from a friend.[7][6] After graduating, she moved to New York City, where she worked day jobs while auditioning for theater roles.[11]
Music career
A Perfect Little Death
Ward's music career began in March 2019 with an acoustic cover of Sondheim's "Every Day a Little Death" from A Little Night Music, which she posted to Instagram with the caption "Sufjan on Sondheim".[10][8][11][12] Encouraged by the cover's positive reception and urged on by a friend, she began posting a series of such covers, beginning with "Johanna (Reprise)" from Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, first posted the following day.[10][6] She also began posting the covers to YouTube in 2019.[9]
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Ward and her boyfriend moved from New York to Boston,[6] and Ward self-released two pop EPs – Prism in May 2020 and Friction in June 2021.[11] The latter was recorded in Brooklyn with producer Allen Tate.[13][14] In August 2020, Ward was one of 30 semi-finalists of Playbill's Search for a Star competition, for which she performed "The Miller's Son" from A Little Night Music.[2] She began uploading her Sondheim covers to TikTok in January 2021 at the advice of a friend.[6][12] Further developing a following on the app, Ward was inspired to create an album of her Sondheim covers, A Perfect Little Death, which she recorded over the course of a month in the walk-in closet of her apartment.[10][11][12] She initially promoted this music under the name SUF/SOND, before Stevens’s legal representatives gently discouraged her from doing so.[11][7]
After making a TikTok asking BroadwayWorld to write about her album, Ward was interviewed by the website, which brought her to the attention of Sh-K-Boom Records founder Kurt Deutsch.[6] This led Deutsch to Ward's cover of "Johanna (Reprise)" on TikTok, and he subsequently contacted her and agreed to distribute her album via Sh-K-Boom's Ghostlight imprint.[6][3][12]A Perfect Little Death was released on Ghostlight in 2021, with a digital release on June 4 and a physical release on October 1.[6][15]
Ward's covers gained wider attention following Sondheim's death in November 2021.[6][11] She performed at Joe's Pub in March 2022, including a duet of "Loving You" from Sondheim's Passion with Donna Murphy, who had previously performed the song as the play's original Fosca.[3][6]
Ward is primarily known for covering the work of Broadway composer Stephen Sondheim in an acoustic indie folk style inspired by Sufjan Stevens.[6][7][11][10][16][33][34][35] Rob Weinert-Kendt of The New York Times wrote that she had "fused an emo Sondheim register with a familiar coffeehousefolk sound....In her hands, it’s not hard to imagine these songs as the creation of an especially gifted — if occasionally bloody-minded — indie singer-songwriter."[3] Reviewing Keep a Tender Distance for BroadwayWorld, Ricky Pope wrote that Ward "is quite faithful to Sondheim's melodic lines, breathing new life into these standards through harmonies and new tempos".[36] Pope also noted her "fondness for keys that are more modal than either major or minor...a perfect match for the frequent ambivalence of some of Sondheim's more brittle lyrics," and that, in addition to folk, the album featured electronic, waltz, bossa nova, and fandango elements on some songs.[36] Weinert-Kendt characterized her singing voice as a "limber, expressive soprano", encompassing both a whistle-toned falsetto and a "Fosca-like lower register",[3] while Pope described it as "a supple, rangy voice that is deeply rooted in emotion and story".[36] In addition to Stevens, her arrangements have also been compared to Laura Marling, Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez, and Joan Shelley.[34][7][17] Noted for her fingerstyle guitar playing,[3][7][34] Ward is a self-taught guitarist and "mostly an ear-based musician";[7]
On the subject of combining Stevens and Sondheim, Ward has noted that the two "share a poeticism that surrounds the sweet juxtaposition of beauty and darkness. They both dive right into the heart of what others might find somber and illuminate it with a sense of elegance and charm that makes that darkness palatable and enchanting."[8] She has attributed her Stevens influence primarily to the albums Carrie & Lowell and The Age of Adz, particularly being inspired by his use of layered guitar picking patterns and call and response repetition.[7][33] Her version of "Finishing the Hat" uses chords inspired by Stevens' "Futile Devices".[33] With regard to Sondheim, Ward's approach differs from his in some ways; her arrangements prioritize melody, in contrast to Sondheim's emphasis on harmony and instrumentation,[7][34] and she largely avoids Sondheim's moments of harsh dissonance (with the exception of "Pretty Women", which she ends with pinging discord).[7] Besides Stevens and Sondheim, her other cited influences include Caroline Polachek, Andrew Bird, Lianne La Havas, St. Vincent, and Still Woozy.[34][9][37][13][38][33] Her version of "In Buddy's Eyes" was inspired by Barbara Cook's rendition.[10]
Ward has received recognition from several Broadway figures. Donna Murphy praised her “unicorn of a voice,” saying that "there is nothing about Eleri that is struggling for a quality; it just all feels so fluid", while Josh Groban noted the "wonderful line" of her voice and said that she "[finds] ways to smooth the songs out and bring even more heart into the performance”.[3] Sondheim himself reportedly praised her interpretation of his songs before his passing.[19][6]