Newton native Aoife O'Donovan brings 'Nebraska' home to Boston

When Aoife O’Donovan was growing up in Newton, she wished she was not named Aoife. “Like any child of the ‘80s or ‘90s,” she says, “I wanted a name like Kristin or Kelly or Karen. I think anybody who had a slightly weird name wanted their name to be like Donna or somebody from ‘90210.’ That’s truly generational.”

“Pronouncing it is easy — Ee-fuh,” O’Donovan says, on the phone. “It’s just hard to connect the pronunciation with the spelling.” It was especially problematic at the beginning of every school year at roll call when teachers would stumble over it.

As an adult – a successful solo artist, a member of the bands I’m With Her and Goat Rodeo, a 2019 Grammy winner and a three-time Grammy nominee this year – the name has served the singer-songwriter well.

“I think it stands out,” she says. “I think of it now and it’s this beautiful, ancient Irish name.” She is first-generation Irish-American, as her father, Brian O’Donovan, emigrated from Clonakilty, West Cork in 1976. (He is the host of the annual Celtic Sojourn St. Patrick’s Day, four shows in and around Boston, March 15-19.)

After graduating high school, O’Donovan moved to Boston to attend New England Conservatory at the urging of her music teacher, Richard Travers. She later moved to Brooklyn and currently resides in Orlando, Florida with her husband, Orlando Philharmonic conductor and cellist Eric Jacobsen, and their daughter Ivy Jo.

But O’Donovan will be back in Boston on March 17 to play at Harvard University’s Sanders Theatre, presented by Celebrity Series of Boston. It will be the first of at least nine US performances of Bruce Springsteen’s 1982 album, “Nebraska.” She’ll be playing solo, accompanying herself on acoustic guitar and will follow “Nebraska” with an encore of songs drawn from her latest album, 2021’s “Age of Apathy,” plus others from her catalog. For that, she’ll be joined by fiddler Brittany Haas, from one of O’Donovan’s on-hiatus bands, Crooked Still and members of the opening instrumental band, Hawktail.

Prior to that, though, O’Donovan, now 40, will be at the New England Conservatory Feb. 13-15 to present and discuss her music, hold a masterclass for Contemporary Musical Arts songwriters, followed by a performance called Americana Revisited at Jordan Hall with CMA students.

Twenty-three years ago, O’Donovan says, she entered a program called Contemporary Improvisation with a handful of undergrads – “very niche, a sub-set of the jazz department, the fringes of music. CI, as it was known then. was a place I learned so many valuable skills and gained a lot of confidence as a musician. I listened to a lot of music I never would have otherwise. It definitely gave me a lot of tools that I’ve kept in my toolbox over the last couple of decades.”

O’Donovan’s music ranges among many genres, but she says, “I think of myself primarily as a folksinger, a storyteller, somebody who writes songs. I love writing a song because you can write a song and send it into the world and it can exist in so many different contexts. I think folk music is the genre I sort of lean into the most because it encompasses so many different things. Folk music means literally music for the people.”

As further influences, she namechecks Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon and Crosby, Stills & Nash – “musicians who really were for a long time fusing their styles” – and says she listens to, and sometimes incorporates sounds from classical, bluegrass, modern and free jazz.

As to “Nebraska,” she performed it once in 2011 “on a whim at a residency in a tiny room, probably for, like, 40 people.” When the pandemic and lockdown struck, O’Donovan – isolated like everyone – decided to revisit “Nebraska” and did a livestream, subsequently releasing audio from the it.

She recently did her first three live performances in the UK and considers the shows on this upcoming tour “as a one-time special.”

O’Donovan says “Nebraska” is an incredible record. “When you really start to internalize it as a piece of writing, a story from start to finish, you see the connection between the songs and the characters he’s writing about. I’m fascinated by the ability to make a record where there’s a thread. It’s kind of a concept album.”

Springsteen recorded the songs as demos and intended to bring in his E Street Band to flesh them out. "I think what makes them compelling is not just the raw four-track recordings, but what he’s singing about, the sort of sadness and the loneliness about these people who are living in the margins, dealing with these American problems,” says O'Donovan.

Nothing about the album or the songs’ subject matter or tone seem dated to O’Donovan. “There are so many things people are worried about,” she says, ticking off a list that starts with the economy and concludes with relationships with estranged parents. Her set ends with ‘Reason to Believe.’ “After witnessing these crazy things, still these people find a reason to believe. Ending the show on that note is very uplifting after listening to an hour of music that’s pretty dark,” says O’'Donovan.

Springsteen took a risk in making the record. His breakthrough album, “Born to Run,” with its big, layered sound and sweeping stories, sold nearly seven million copies worldwide. Though critically acclaimed, the spare "Nebraska” sold less than 1.5 million copies worldwide; it didn’t offer the dramatic punch and feel-good rock ‘n’ roll release many Springsteen fans craved. (His next, “Born in the USA” would go on to sell more than 30 million copies.)

Even if a full run-through of “Nebraska” is not what her fans expected, O’Donovan feels that by kicking it up again she’s not taking a Springsteen-ian risk. “I really love the record and it had such a positive response when I did the livestream.” Also, she adds, after touring for “Age of Apathy,” it’s nice to do a solo show playing music that’s not her own.

“To be onstage by myself as an interpreter of songs is such a really cool thing to do. It’s like putting on a different hat,” says O’Donovan. “It’s boring if you come back to town and keep doing the same show over and over again. It’s more fun for me to get up on stage and to play a gig with a different flavor.”