Jun 06 2024 46 mins 3
In an industry that loves to put artists into neatly defined boxes, Rhiannon Giddens refuses to be pigeonholed. Trained as an operatic soprano at Oberlin College and Conservatory, the 2000 graduate moved back home to North Carolina, picked up the fiddle and fell in love with old-time banjo.
Her eclectic folk music has taken her into every imaginable space. She has won two Grammy Awards, a MacArthur Genius Grant, and the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for the opera Omar based on the autobiography of an enslaved Muslim man. A proud, mission-driven artist, Giddens is committed to shining a light on people whose contributions to America’s musical history have been overlooked or erased. And she uses her spotlight to highlight the banjo's roots in Black culture.
William Quillen, the dean of Oberlin Conservatory, calls her one of the most important creative and artistic voices of our time. A founding member of the all-female banjo supergroup, Our Native Daughters, Giddens has also published children’s books, has written and performed music for the soundtrack of Red Dead Redemption 2, one of the best-selling video games of all time.
She appeared on the ABC hit drama, Nashville, and throughout Ken Burns’s country music series on PBS. And most recently, she received a Grammy nomination for her 2023 album, You're the One, and played banjo and viola on Beyonce's TEXAS HOLD ’EM, a global number one hit and the first song from a Black woman to top Billboard's Hot 100 country songs chart.
Before delivering Oberlin College and Conservatory’s 2024 commencement address, Giddens sat down with Running to the Noise host and Oberlin president Carmen Twillie Ambar to discuss her genre-defying career, navigating the music industry, and smashing musical barriers.
Running to the Noise is a production of Oberlin College and Conservatory and is produced by University FM.
