LEON BRIDGES

Sydney — Monday 7 March 2022

The Sydney Opera House today announced Grammy Award-winning, Texan R&B artist and songwriter Leon Bridges will perform on stage in the renewed Concert Hall on Monday 3 October, 2022. The world-famous venue is due to reopen in mid-2022 after more than two years of extensive upgrades, which will transform the live experience for artists and audiences. The multi-million-dollar renewal project, funded by the NSW Government, will equip the venue for the full spectrum of 21st century performance, providing better sound, better access, and giving artists greater capacity to realise their creative vision. 

The chart-topping, soul singer will be among the first contemporary music artists to perform in the Concert Hall after its reopening. Leon Bridges will make his Opera House debut as part of The Boundless Tour, performing from his award-winning catalogue of songs including his most electric R&B album yet, Gold-Diggers Sound (2021). Mixing emotional songwriting, ethereal yet seductive guitars and Bridge’s honey-coated vocals, Bridges will bring his charisma and full band to the stage in his long-awaited return to Australia.

Sydney Opera House Head of Contemporary Music, Ben Marshall, says: “There’s no better way to welcome contemporary music back into the renewed Concert Hall than with the timeless soul and R&B of Leon Bridges. What a thrill it’ll be hearing his powerful, golden voice reverberating around the vaulted ceiling of the Opera House’s grandest room, a space now perfectly configured for experiencing the extraordinary sonic care inherent in all Leon’s songs. Gold-Diggers Sound deals with time – time stopping, time stretching – an appropriate motif for this moment, stopped from communally experiencing music and song for so long. Now we can do it together again in the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall at last, and it’s going to be an absolute blast.”

From working as a dishwasher and busking on the streets of his hometown Fort Worth, TX to being signed to a major label and performing at the White House for Former President Barack Obama within a two-year span, Bridges has continued to push the boundaries of his career.

Bridges exploded with his 2015 smash “Coming Home” and the best-selling, Billboard Top-10 album of the same name, which drew comparisons to classic soul artists like Sam Cooke and Otis Redding and yielded the powerful, moving “River”. He followed-up with the Grammy Award-winning 2018, Good Thing which featured the sultry hit “Beyond”, and the 2020 EP Texas Sun, a country-R&B project with alt rockers and fellow Texans, Khruangbin. Between album releases, he has collaborated and released a stream of music including tracks with The Avalanches, John Mayer, Lucky Daye, Kacey Musgraves, Jazmine Sullivan, and Diplo. His latest album Gold-Diggers Sound – currently nominated for two Grammys – is a modernisation of the sensual and emotive genre of Southern Soul.