“Ask Rhiannon Giddens to describe her upcoming concert with the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra and she has a ready answer: ‘It’s gonna be a nice mixture of all the things I do.’ And Giddens does a lot of things,” writes Matthew J. Palm in Wednesday’s (10/10) Orlando Sentinel (FL). Music Director Eric Jacobsen will lead the concert with Giddens, a “violinist, banjo player, singer and founder of the … Carolina Chocolate Drops, a country-folk-blues band. She also studied opera at Oberlin Conservatory, has two solo albums … and appeared on TV’s … ‘Nashville.’ She has won the MacArthur ‘Genius Grant’ fellowship … and is developing a new musical, a ballet score, an opera…. All of her experiences and skills combine when she takes the stage with a symphony orchestra, she says. ‘They all influence each other,’ she says. ‘Everything that I have done goes into the pot, and I never know what’s going to come out.’ If you see her opera background influencing the banjo or a hint of folk-music phrasing in her more formal singing, Giddens will be happy…. ‘Each song is like a mini-opera for me,’ she says.”
Posted October 12, 2018
