Sufjan Stevens

An American songwriter with a penchant for storytelling, Sufjan Stevens mixes autobiography, religious fantasy, and regional history to create folk songs of epic proportions. His grand proposal to make a record for each of the 50 states has thus far transpired two albums, Michigan and Illinois.

A preoccupation with epic concepts has motivated other projects, including an electronic record for the animals of the Chinese Zodiac (Enjoy Your Rabbit, 2001), a five-disc Christmas box set, and, more recently, a symphonic tone-poem for the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.

With his stepfather Lowell, Sufjan owns and operates his own music label, Asthmatic Kitty Records, named after Lowell’s beloved cat Sara, who suffers from acute feline asthma.