Randy Newman has announced a series of international ‘An Evening With Randy Newman’ tour dates for 2020, beginning with Australia and New Zealand in January and February (his first tour of Australia since 2011, and his first ever tour of New Zealand). These tour dates follow the release of Dark Matter, Newman’s first album of new material in a decade, which includes the Grammy-winning song ‘Putin’.
AUSTRALIA & NEW ZEALAND | JANUARY & FEBRUARY 2020
Thu Jan 30 Australia | Riverside Theatre, Perth
Sun Feb 2 Australia | Hamer Hall, Melbourne
Tue Feb 4 Australia | State Theatre, Sydney
Fri Feb 7 Australia | QPAC Concert Hall, Brisbane
Sun Feb 9 New Zealand | Civic Theatre, Auckland
Tue Feb 11 New Zealand | Wellington Opera House, Wellington
Thu Feb 13 New Zealand | Isaac Theatre Royal, Christchurch
Nonesuch Records released Dark Matter, the follow-up to 2008’s best-selling Harps and Angels, in August 2017 to widespread critical acclaim. “A collection of mordant musical entertainments that moves deftly from the sharply political to the deeply personal, from the Cuban Missile Crisis and Putin to songs of love and death that glide gracefully and cut deep”, wrote Mojo, which rated it one of the best albums of the year, as did Uncut magazine, who proclaimed “Each satirical sketch is lavishly arranged like a miniature film score, with multiple characters, shifting points of view and dramatic lurches in musical style.” In the words of the Daily Telegraph, “Newman has made an album that is a match for anything in his canon. Both topical and timeless.”
Newman began recording in 1968 with a self-titled album. Throughout the 1970s, he released several other acclaimed albums such as 12 Songs, Sail Away, and Good Old Boys. He began composing and scoring for films in the 1980s, and his work includes all four Toy Story pictures, A Bug’s Life, Cars and Cars 3. In addition to Dark Matter, most recently Nonesuch released The Randy Newman Songbook, comprising solo recordings of songs from throughout Newman’s five-decade career. His many honours include seven Grammys, three Emmys, and two Academy Awards, as well as a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2002 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2013 – the same year he was given an Ivor Novello PRS for Music Special International Award. Newman also was presented with a PEN New England Song Lyrics of Literary Excellence Award in 2014. In 2018 he collaborated with Rex Orange County on his version of Newman’s ‘You’ve Got A Friend In Me’, and in 2019, in addition to Toy Story 4, he collaborated with Chance The Rapper on ‘5 Year Plan’ for the album The Big Day.