Rhiannon Giddens 

Grammy Award winner and 2017 Grammy nominee Rhiannon Giddens is hailed as the brightest light in American Roots. Poised and powerful, her ecstatic explorations of the American songbook and her fiery, rich musicality have made her one of the most unique American voices. Known for her extraordinary emotional range, and spectacular fiddle and banjo playing with the Carolina Chocolate Drops, Giddens has skyrocketed into a solo career interpreting African American folk, gospel, blues, jazz, and country on the world stage. After years of touring festival circuits and playing university halls and major cities with Carolina Chocolate Drops, her fate took a turn, in 2013, when she dazzled T Bone Burnett with her operatic delivery at a live performance in Manhattan. He quickly got to work with her recording interpretations of great American female singers like Patsy Cline, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, and Nina Simone. Since then, she’s written Freedom Highway, a collection of songs “based on slave narratives from the 1800s, African American experiences of the last century, and the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, and headlines from streets of Ferguson and Baltimore today,” released on Nonesuch Records. Barefoot in a ballgown—she joins us on a world tour including the Spoleto Festival, Lincoln Center, Newport Jazz Festival and the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. This performance has been generously underwritten by Erin McKean and Steve Sullivan.