FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, NC, 4/22/2024 — My Music with Rhiannon Giddens returns to PBS this May with six new episodes. Produced by the Will and Deni McIntyre Foundation, Season 2 focuses on the musician’s work with the groundbreaking Silkroad Ensemble as it embarks on “American Railroad,” her flagship program as Silkroad’s artistic director. One of the most important technological and economic achievements of the 19th century, the transcontinental railroad helped shape our cultural identity. However, the diverse immigrant groups and formerly enslaved people whose labor built the railroad have not been duly recognized. This season of My Music with Rhiannon Giddens aims to highlight those communities starting with the premiere episode on Thursday, May 2, at 9:30 PM on PBS NC and streaming on PBS.org and the PBS App.
In each episode of Season 2, MacArthur “Genius Grant” recipient and Pulitzer Prize and Grammy Award winner Rhiannon Giddens hosts a half-hour performance and conversation with an accomplished musician representing one of the cultures integral to the creation of the transcontinental railroad. Giddens remarks, “This season, highlighting the different groups most affected by the transcontinental railroad through the music and creative minds of Silkroad artists, was a massive undertaking. Producers Will and Deni McIntyre hit it out of the park! It was such a delight to bring them into the Silkroad family.”
Episodes of My Music with Rhiannon Giddens typically culminate with an excerpt from Silkroad Ensemble’s “American Railroad” live concert presented by Cal Performances and recorded at UC Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall.
“Born and raised in North Carolina, Rhiannon Giddens is a shining star from our state, and we are thrilled to be collaborating with her on another season of My Music,” states Rachel Raney, director of National Productions at PBS North Carolina. “Thanks to this compelling program, we have the honor of amplifying Rhiannon’s work to PBS audiences all over the country, who are sure to be just as inspired by her artistry and storytelling as we are.”
Featured artists this season on My Music with Rhiannon Giddens include renowned pipa musician Wu Man, Celtic harpist Maeve Gilchrist, violinist and improvisational conductor Mazz Swift, tabla virtuoso Sandeep Das, Japanese percussionist Haruka Fujii and Tuscarora/Taino vocalist and lap steel slide guitar player Pura Fé. They play solo pieces as well as duets with Rhiannon, talk about their personal backgrounds and artistic journeys, and reveal the common ground of music’s global roots.
Below is a full list of episodes airing in season 2. Watch the preview.
Episode 1: Wu Man
Thursday, May 2, 9:30 PM (Stream beginning Wednesday May 1)
Rhiannon Giddens performs and talks with world-renowned pipa musician Wu Man, a 2023 NEA National Heritage Fellow who has been a member of the Silkroad Ensemble since 2000. They talk about the origins of the pipa (a traditional Chinese instrument) and discuss Silkroad’s multiyear “American Railroad” project.
Episode 2: Maeve Gilchrist
Thursday, May 9, 9:30 PM (Stream beginning Wednesday, May 8)
Rhiannon Giddens shares a musical visit with Celtic harpist Maeve Gilchrist in a historic North Carolina train station. They discuss the harp’s place in different musical traditions and Maeve’s original composition for Silkroad Ensemble’s “American Railroad” project.
Episode 3: Mazz Swift
Thursday, May 16, 9:30 PM (Stream beginning Wednesday, May 15)
Host Rhiannon Giddens visits with Mazz Swift, a violinist, vocalist and improvisational conductor whose musical journey includes education at Juilliard, playing music in the New York subway and working with goats on a farm.
Episode 4: Sandeep Das
Thursday, May 23, 9:30 PM (Stream beginning Wednesday, May 22)
Sandeep Das is a virtuoso on the tabla (a type of hand drum from northern India), and his musical education included living for twelve years in the home of a famous guru. Sandeep and host Rhiannon Giddens share a visit in L.A.’s Union Station that concludes with a Silkroad Ensemble performance at UC Berkeley featuring the tabla.
Episode 5: Haruka Fujii
Thursday, May 30, 9:30 PM (Stream beginning Wednesday, May 29)
Japanese percussionist Haruka Fujii talks with host Rhiannon Giddens about the surprising history of the marimba in Japan, her mission to share the beauty of Japanese music with diverse audiences and Silkroad’s “American Railroad” project. The episode concludes with a performance of Fujii’s original composition “Tamping Song.”
Episode 6: Pura Fé
Thursday, June 6, 9:30 PM (Stream beginning Wednesday, June 5)
Indigenous vocalist and lap steel slide guitarist Pura Fé has both Tuscarora and Taino blood in her veins and generations of ancestors in her voice. She shares her personal background and musical journey in an episode that culminates in a Silkroad Ensemble performance of her song “Mahk Jchi.”
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 the all-female banjo supergroup Our Native Daughters (with Allison Russell, Leyla McCalla and 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 nonprofit 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 the 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. Learn more about the artist on her website.
The Will & Deni McIntyre Foundation is a 501(c)(3) charitable nonprofit foundation established in 2009 to raise the profile of arts and educational groups through the creation of videos and photography for streaming, websites and related media. It was the prime fundraising entity for David Holt’s State of Music, a PBS series that over its six seasons has been aired by PBS affiliates in all fifty states. In 2023 the foundation launched a new series for PBS, My Music with Rhiannon Giddens.
The foundation has received major grants from the Rhea Bigelow Charitable Trust, the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, the Community Foundation of Henderson County NC and its Perry N. Rudnick Endowment, the Carlyle Adams Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Tannenbaum-Sternberger Foundation, the Blue Ridge National Heritage Area, Betty and Ben Cone Jr., Ben and Laurie Duke and Family, the J. Lyles Glenn Family Fund, Ron and Cheri Allari, Myrna Harris and the A Bar A Ranch in Wyoming. Learn more about the foundation on its website.
Cellist Yo-Yo Ma conceived Silkroad in 1998, recognizing the historical Silk Road as a model for cultural collaboration—for the exchange of ideas, tradition and innovation across borders. In a groundbreaking experiment, he brought together musicians from the lands of the Silk Road to co-create a musical language founded in difference, thus creating the foundation of Silkroad: both a touring ensemble comprised of world-class musicians from all over the globe and a Boston-based non-profit organization working to make a positive impact across borders through the arts.
Today, under the leadership of Artistic Director Rhiannon Giddens and Executive Director Ben Hartley, Silkroad leads social impact initiatives and educational programming alongside the creation of new music by the Grammy Award-winning Silkroad Ensemble. Learn more about Silkroad on its website.
As North Carolina’s statewide PBS network serving the country’s third largest public media market, PBS North Carolina educates, informs, entertains and inspires its audience on air, online and in person. Through its unique partnership of public investment and private support, the network includes in-person engagement, digital-first social and online content delivery and four over-the-air channels: PBS NC, the North Carolina Channel, Rootle 24/7 PBS KIDS channel and the Explorer Channel. Its transformational events and content spark curiosity and wonder for all North Carolinians. Additionally, PBS North Carolina serves as the backbone for North Carolina’s state emergency services. To learn more about PBS North Carolina, visit pbsnc.org or follow us on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.
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Media Contacts
Promotional assets will be available for PBS stations on the Source. A social media toolkit including video assets is available on Google Drive. Please email Nicole Eure for more information.
Nicole Eure, National Productions
PBS North Carolina
neure@pbsnc.org
Allyson Meade, Marketing & Communications
PBS North Carolina
press@pbsnc.org