Dolly Parton is virtually coming to a concert hall near you.
The Rock Hall-inducted country legend isn’t backing down on her decision to quit full-scale touring, though she has green-lit a new, traveling experience that will take her music around the world.
Dolly Parton’s Threads: My Songs in Symphony is said to be an “innovative multimedia experience” featuring Dolly on screen, and giving audiences a “visual-musical journey of her songs, her life, and her stories.”
That project will get underway Thursday, March 20, 2025 at Schermerhorn Symphony Center, with the Nashville Symphony. Guest vocalists and musicians selected by Parton will perform at that show, and others. Schirmer Theatrical and Sony Music Publishing are co-producers, and more cities with local orchestras will be announced in due course.
Expect to hear the classics “Jolene,” “Coat Of Many Colors,” and “I Will Always Love You,” plus Dolly’s “personal favorites” and an as-yet unreleased selection from her upcoming Broadway musical.
Parton, now 78, isn’t cutting down on her workload, which includes recordings, book release and projects for the small and big screens, though in 2022 she revealed that full-fledged touring was a thing of the past. “I do not think I will ever tour again, but I do know I’ll do special shows here and there, now and then. Maybe do a long weekend of shows, or just a few shows at a festival. But I have no intention of going on a full-blown tour anymore,” Parton told the Pollstar. (Billboard independently verified the news.)
Parton’s most recent tour was her 2016 Pure & Simple Tour, which included 60 shows in the United States and Canada.
Before Dolly Parton’s Threads hits the road, the country icon will release Good Lookin’ Cookin’ on Sept. 17, a cookbook on which she’s partnered with her sister, Rachel Parton George.
On the music side of the Dolly empire, her 49th and latest solo studio album Rockstar blasted in at No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart last year, for her first leader on the 32-year-old tally. The star-studded collection was promoted as Parton’s first rock album, and its recording was inspired by Parton’s induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2022. The 30-track collection also debuted at a career-high No. 3 on the all-genre Billboard 200, surpassing Parton’s previous high of No. 6 for 2014’s Blue Smoke.