It may be an understatement to report that the multi-faceted American treasure that is Rhiannon Giddens is having well-deserved moments in the public spotlight at the moment, adding a Pulitzer Prize this year (for her first opera, Omar) to a list of accolades including a MacArthur Grant. Locally speaking, within the space of a year, Giddens — the celebrated singer-banjoist- project-maker-activist — is having a triple-play impact on the cultural life in the 805.
On November 9, at the Granada Theatre, Giddens arrives as director of the storied and definitively multicultural Silkroad Ensemble, under the aegis of UCSB Arts & Lectures. This special event, the first stop on a tour of a new project “American Railroad,” presenting music around the theme of the complexities, exploitation and displacement of people of color and the working class in the process of building the transcontinental railroad.
Her Silkroad project comes close on the heels of Giddens’ role as music director of the Ojai Music Festival last June. She also returns to town with her own project, with a five piece band that includes her partner and Italian multi-instrumentalist with a worldly vantage point Francesco Turrisi, at Campbell Hall on April 23, 2024, promoting her robust new Nonesuch album You’re the One. All told, this is a year when we in the region are afforded the chance to catch Giddens and her many and expanding incarnations and socio-historic dimensions.