Grammy-award winning musician Ed Sheeran will perform at Duke Sept. 27 as part of the University’s Centennial Founder’s Day and Homecoming Celebration Weekend.
The concert will be held in Wallace Wade Stadium from 7:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. Ticket registration for “alumni, students, faculty, staff and friends” is expected to open “soon” and will be available at no cost, though seating is limited.
The event was announced Friday in an email to the University community and posted on the Duke Centennial website. In addition to the concert headlined by Sheeran, the weekend will also feature Centennial events including a conversation between University presidents past and present and Duke football’s homecoming game against the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Sheeran is a singer-songwriter who incorporates elements of folk, hip-hop and pop, among other genres. He is known for songs like “Perfect” and “Shape of You,” which each boast over 3 billion streams on Spotify. “Shape of You” spent 59 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100, remaining at number one for 12 weeks.
Sheeran has received 4 Grammy awards and 17 nominations throughout his career, and he has two number-one hits and nine top-ten hits on the Billboard Hot 100. He was named the United Kingdom’s most played artist of the year in 2023 and has collaborated with other top artists including Justin Bieber, Camila Cabello and Cardi B.
Sheeran’s wife, Cherry Seaborn Sheeran, graduated from the Fuqua School of Business with a Master of Management Studies in 2014.
The concert will also feature appearances by 9th Wonder and Retta, Trinity ‘92.
Patrick Douthit, who performs under the name 9th Wonder, is a lecturing fellow in the department of African & African American studies. He hails from Winston-Salem and has gained “critical acclaim” for producing songs for artists including Jay-Z and Drake.
Marietta Sangai Sirleaf, known professionally as “Retta,” is a stand-up comedian and actress. Notably, she played Donna Meagle in sitcom Parks and Recreation and Ruby Hill in NBC’s Good Girls.
Schedule of events
The weekend’s events will kick off Sept. 26 with a discussion between President Vincent Price and former presidents Nannerl Keohane and Richard Brodhead, to be moderated by acclaimed broadcast journalist Judy Woodruff, Woman’s College ‘68 and DHL ‘98. The panel discussion will take place at 4:30 p.m. in Reynolds Theater in the Bryan Center and will also be livestreamed.
At 4 p.m. the next day will be the official dedication of the George and George-Frank Wall Center for Student Life, formerly the East Union Building. The renaming was first announced in February.
The dedication will be followed by the concert in Wallace Wade, which will begin at 7:30 p.m.
On Saturday, the Blue Devils will take on rival Tar Heels during the football’s homecoming game. The start time has not yet been announced.
Additional events will take place throughout the weekend to mark the festivities, including a Founder’s Day chapel service on Sunday, Centennial exhibits in Perkins Library and the Nasher Museum of Art and more.
Editor’s note: This article was updated Friday afternoon to note that Sheeran’s wife graduated from Duke’s Fuqua School of Business.
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Michael Austin is a Trinity junior and managing editor of The Chronicle's 120th volume.
Zoe Kolenovsky is a Trinity junior and news editor of The Chronicle's 120th volume.