Grammy Award-winning artist Rhiannon Giddens is a North Carolina gem. Though she splits her time between the U.S and Ireland, her commitment to the music, culture, and stories of the South is still the driving force behind her work.
Her recent artistic endeavors also highlight her passion for preserving and reframing the history of African Americans and their contributions to the music landscape. With support from her 2017 MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship, she is creating a musical about the 1898 coup d'etat in Wilmington, during which the Ku Klux Klan started a race riot and overthrew the local government. Giddens tells the stories of African American history in her collaboration with folk singers Amythyst Kiah, Leyla McCalla, and Allison Russell on the 2019 album “Songs of Our Native Daughters.”
She returns to the State of Things to talk with host Frank Stasio about her recent body of work and her latest album “There Is No Other,” a collaboration with Italian jazz musician Francesco Turrisi. Turrisi, an acclaimed pianist and percussionist, joins the show to talk about how they met, collaborated and challenged the boundaries of traditional folk music. The two perform at the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh on Wednesday, Sept. 25 at 7:30 p.m.