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, Grammy-winning black string band, Carolina Chocolate Drops, and all female banjo supergroup, Our Native Daughters (Allison Russell, Leyla McCalla, Amythyst Kiah), Giddens is as much a curator as a creator. She was a Perspectives Artist at Carnegie Hall (2020-2023), is a Southern Futures Artist-in-Resident at UNC Chapel Hill (2021-2024), and began her work as the Artistic Director of the Yo-Yo Ma founded non-profit and musical ensemble, Silkroad, in 2020.

Giddens has published 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 has appeared on ABC hit drama Nashville and throughout Ken Burns’ Country Music series, also on PBS. Giddens sang for the Obamas at the White House; is a three-time NPR Tiny Desk Concert alum; and hosts her own show on PBS, My Music with Rhiannon Giddens, as well as the Aria Code podcast, which is produced by New York City’s NPR affiliate station WQXR. Most recently, her fretless banjo can be heard on Beyoncé’s “Texas Hold ‘Em” – the first song from a black female artist to ever hit #1 on the Billboard Country Music charts.

She is also an avid biscuit baker.