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.