Magnetic Fields’ Stephin Merritt presents a set of solo, acoustic versions of selected songs from his extensive catalog accompanied by long-time bandmate Sam Davol on cello. Merritt will perform exactly 26 songs with each song title starting with a different letter of the alphabet and running in alphabetical order.

Merritt has written and recorded ten Magnetic Fields albums over two decades. The Magnetic Fields’ debut album, Distant Plastic Trees, was released in 1991. In 1999, The Magnetic Fields’ three-CD collection, 69 Love Songs, established Merritt as one of his generation’s most talented songwriters and garnered him widespread acclaim, including year-end “best of” lists in Rolling Stone, SPIN, The New York Times, LA Times, Washington Post, and other major national publications. 69 Love Songs was followed by three albums on Nonesuch Records: i in 2004, Distortion in 2008, and Realism in 2010.

Between Magnetic Fields releases, Merritt has recorded side projects and albums with his various other bands, Future Bible Heroes, the Gothic Archies and the 6ths, as well as soundtracks to the films Eban and Charley and Pieces of April. In 2006, Nonesuch also released a collection of songs Merritt wrote under the name The Gothic Archies to accompany the Lemony Snicket books, The Tragic Treasury: Songs from a Series of Unfortunate Events. In 2009, Merritt scored the Off-Broadway adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s novel Coraline—for which he received an Obie Award.

Merritt and the Magnetic Fields have performed as part of Lincoln Center’s “American Songwriters” series and at BAM’s “Next Wave of Song.” In 2012, Merritt released his latest 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. In the fall of 2014, Merritt penned the first-ever musical episode of NPR’s popular show, “This American Life.”