At age 46, Catie Curtis has an illustrious career, performing with artists such as Mary Chapin Carpenter, Patty Griffin, Bonnie Raitt and Kris Kristopherson. She tours with the Lilith Fair — the music festival founded by Sarah McLachlan — and has performed several times at the White House.

Television shows, such as “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Dawson’s Creek,” “Alias” and “Felicity,” have featured her music.

And as of Friday night, she can add a Peterborough Folk Music Society concert at the Peterborough Players theater to her list of accomplishments.

A singer-songwriter, Curtis classifies her music as folk acoustic. She has a large repertoire to choose from for her concert Friday, having produced 11 CDs of songs she’s mostly written herself. She won the 2002 Boston Music Award for Song of the Year and the 2006 Grand Prize in the International Songwriting Competition.

“There’s a lot of humor in my shows and a lot of variety. I’ve written about political and social issues, family and relationship stuff and some goofy stuff,” said Curtis in an interview Monday.

This is Curtis’s first concert with the Peterborough Folk Music Society, but she’s not new to the New England area. Curtis, who currently lives in Newton, Mass., is a New England native.
“I love playing in New England,” she said. “I grew up in Maine, and I have a lot of friends in Peterborough, so I’m excited to be returning.”

Curtis first started to play acoustic guitar when she was given a used one as a gift, with the caveat that she learn to play. Curtis made good on the promise and founded a philanthropic organization called Aspire to Inspire, which has raised $12,000 to date in support of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers Foundation mission to buy instruments for needy youth.

Curtis said her music has very descriptive lyrics, but also contains a groove that she attributes to growing up in the 1970s and listening to pop and singer-songwriters. But it wasn’t until Curtis, while a student at Brown University in Providence, R.I., saw Suzanne Vega play a concert that she knew that she wanted to sing and write folk music.

“I recognized immediately that’s what I wanted to do,” she said. “She’d play these songs that you’d feel like they were about you. And that’s the thing about this genre. People can really see themselves in the songs.”

As is typical in folk music, Curtis’s songs often tell a story. The title track from her latest album, “Stretch Limousine on Fire,” was inspired when Curtis saw, well, a stretch limousine on fire. But the song has more layers than that.

“It’s a song about the music industry and economic injustice and the understanding that people with a lot of money still have bad days. Sometimes your stretch limousine catches fire,” she said. It’s comforting to know that even when bad things happen, they are universal and happen to everyone, said Curtis.

Many artists write songs that reflect their lives. Curtis is no exception, especially as a writer of folk music, which is often characterized by storytelling.

“As a person living every day your intentions shift day by day. My writing reflects that,” said Curtis.

Curtis’s writing has changed and matured along with her over the years. She said that in her 20s and 30s her primary interest in life was finding her soul mate. Later, her writing shifted to include world issues and commitment to relationships.

She said one of her previous albums, “Sweet Life,” was written right after she and her wife, Liz Marshall, adopted their two daughters from Guatemala. As a result, she said “Sweet Life” is the most gentle and sweetest records that she’s ever put out.

“That record is really about being together with family, and the struggles about being in a world where you see painful things on the news and you have to imagine your kids growing up in that world,” she said.

Her current album shows another slight shift in her range of topics, taking more of a worldview of things. “There’s a couple of songs now that look at the arc of one’s life and the legacy that you want to leave,” she explained. “It’s a similar style of writing to my other work, but it’s different in its intentions and priorities.”

The album’s theme centers on the temporary nature of life and holding on to brief, beautiful moments as long as possible.

Reflecting that, two of her new songs are about marriage and two are about death, said Curtis. The subject of marriage has become more interesting to her of late, noted Curtis, who was ordained to officiate weddings in 2010. Her song “Wedding Band” describes a couple going through their marriage, staying true to each other even though, as the song explains, “there’s no guarantee that love can hold.”

“It’s about how almost random things can choose whether a relationship lasts or not,” she said.

But Curtis said that no matter how much her songwriting evolves, and her lyrics explore new themes and subject matter, she remains true to what is important to her at that period in her life. As her song “Passing Through” from her album “Hello Stranger” says, “If I can’t change the world, I can change the world within my reach.”

“Each time people come and listen to music they’re inspired to change,” said Curtis. “I think part of the meaning of folk music is to connect with the call to inspiration and do what you’re called to do with your life.”

Curtis will be accompanied by musician Jenna Lindvo on Friday and the concert will feature an appearance by folksinger Alastair Moock, whose original compositions celebrates American roots music.

This article appears in the Feb. 9, 2012, edition of the Ledger-Transcript.