Rhiannon Giddens: Music of the American Underclass - What Really Made America Great

Rhiannon Giddens has made a singular iconic career out of stretching her brand of folk music with its miles-deep historical roots and contemporary sensibilities into just about every field imaginable. A two-time GRAMMY Award-winning singer and multi-instrumentalist MacArthur ​“Genius” grant recipient Pulitzer Prize winner and composer of opera ballet and film Giddens has centered her work around the mission of lifting up people whose contributions to American musical history have previously been overlooked or erased and advocating for a more accurate understanding of the country’s musical origins through art.
A founding member of the landmark Black string band Carolina Chocolate Drops and the all-female banjo supergroup Our Native Daughters Giddens is as much a curator as a creator. She is the current Artistic Director of the Yo-Yo Ma-founded Silkroad Ensemble hosts a TV show on PBS My Music with Rhiannon Giddens and has hosted two podcasts (Aria Code from New York City’s NPR affiliate station WQXR which ran for three seasons and American Railroad from Silkroad). Giddens has published two children’s books and written and performed music for the soundtrack of Red Dead Redemption II one of the best-selling video games of all time. She appeared as a recurring cast member on ABC’s hit drama Nashville and as a music history expert on Ken Burns’ Country Music series on PBS. This year she launched her own music festival in Durham NC called Biscuits & Banjos to celebrate Black culture outside the mainstream.
As Pitchfork once said ​“few artists are so fearless and so ravenous in their exploration” — a journey that has led to NPR naming her one of its 25 Most Influential Women Musicians of the 21st Century and to American Songwriter calling her ​“one of the most important musical minds currently walking the planet.”
Giddens has released three albums under her own name and two in collaboration with Italian multi-instrumentalist Francesco Turrisi all on Nonesuch Records. American Railroad her first album in collaboration with the Silkroad Ensemble was released in November 2024 and her most recent album a collaboration with Justin Robinson What Did the Blackbird Say to the Crow was released in April 2025.
Rhiannon Giddens serves as the inaugural Artist-in-Residence for the University of Michigan’s Arts Initiative.
Presented in partnership with the Arts Initiative.
This project was made possible by a grant from the Arts Initiative at the University of Michigan.
Series presenting partners: Detroit PBS ALL ARTS and PBS Books. Media partner: Michigan Public.

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• Next month, 19th September, 07:00 pm, Dana Miller and John Yau - The Art and Lives of Carmen Herrera and Leon Polk Smith in Ann Arbor