Commissions
Rhiannon Giddens
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 and Pulitzer Prize-winning singer and instrumentalist, MacArthur “Genius” grant recipient, 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.
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.”
FreshGrass Commission
Rhiannon Giddens’ Composition Commission performance was a revelation: a collection of songs inspired by her historical research into women living in slavery in different cultures down through the centuries.
"I've been thinking a lot about the origin of these instruments that go into what we call bluegrass instruments, particularly the banjo," she said. "I've also been doing a lot of research, and my research has taken me back across the sea to Africa and to the Middle East, and to Southern Europe. and finding these connections. It's not a historical piece, per se," she said. "It's things that are inspiring [the piece]. It's always women's voices with me, connecting ideas of spirituality and life from one area to the other through the instruments and, concerning where the banjo comes from, making another connection through the tambourine, which is a very big part of minstrel music, which then kind of goes on to inform every following American genre of music." –Rhiannon Giddens, Berkshire Eagle on the commissioned works
