EFC presents « Madison Ryann Ward »

On 24 June 2026, American singer-songwriter Madison Ryann Ward will perform at Q-Factory in Amsterdam. Born in Lawton, Oklahoma, she found her voice between the church pews where her mother played piano and the soul and blues that filled her home. A chance campus video — a cover of Aretha Franklin’s “Chain of Fools” — brought her NCAA volleyball career to an end and opened the door to the recording studio. In her early years she worked with Rick Rubin, which led to the 2018 single “Mirror.” Later she opted for independence, founding her own Zelda House Records and releasing A New Thing (2023) and Purified Love (2024).

Live, Ward centers on voice, lyrics and space. She moves fluidly between contemporary Christian, soul and R&B, with folk and blues inflections that ground the music. The arrangements are spare, the melodies clear; at the core remains her timbre, tinged with a faint gospel color. On stage she weaves new material and earlier favourites into intimate, lived-in songs about faith, love and self-examination, unadorned and close to the song’s source. Her set exhales a calm kind of intensity in which the words carry and the phrasing sets the tone, with a focus that draws you directly to the heart of her songwriting.