Courtesy photo.
The winner of the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Music will perform songs from her new album, You’re The One
SUMMARY
- UCSB Arts & Lectures presents Rhiannon Giddens
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- Tues, April 23 | 8 p.m. | Arlington Theatre (note new venue)
- The Grammy Award and Pulitzer Prize-winner will bring her iconic brand of American music to Santa Barbara for an evening of soulful artistry
- Special guest Charly Lowry
- Giddens’ banjo and viola playing are featured on Beyoncé’s chart-topping new hit, “Texas Hold ‘Em”
- $125 Gold Circle (preferred seating) / $90 / $65 / $45 / $19 UCSB students (Current student ID required) (An Arlington facility fee will be added to each ticket price)
- Tickets & Info: www.ArtsAndLectures.UCSB.edu
“One of the most important musical minds currently walking the planet.” American Songwriter
“I hope that people just hear American music. Blues, jazz, Cajun, country, gospel, and rock – it’s all there. I like to be where it meets organically.” – Rhiannon Giddens on You’re The One
SANTA BARBARA — UCSB Arts & Lectures presents Rhiannon Giddens on Tuesday, April 23 at 8 p.m. at The Arlington Theatre. Singer and instrumentalist Rhiannon Giddens’ iconic brand of folk music spotlights people whose contributions to American musical history have been overlooked or erased, and advocates for a more accurate understanding of the country’s musical origins through art. A two-time Grammy Award winner, MacArthur fellow and composer, she was awarded the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Music for her debut opera Omar. Her highly-anticipated new solo album, You’re the One, was released in August. For this show, Giddens will be joined by opening act Charly Lowry.
Since then, Giddens has enjoyed sharing credit with Beyoncé for her session work as a musician on the global #1 single “Texas Hold ‘Em,” which Beyoncé released to general acclaim on February 11, 2024. The track ignited discussions on Black musicians’ place within country music and boosted the listenership of Black country artists and country radio. “Texas Hold ‘Em” fulfilled Giddens’ longstanding ambition to hear banjo (in this case, her own) on a recording by an internationally recognized Black pop star.
ABOUT RHIANNON GIDDENS
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 and Pulitzer Prize-winning singer and instrumentalist, MacArthur “Genius” grant recipient, 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.
As Pitchfork once said, “few artists are so fearless and so ravenous in their exploration” – a journey that has led to NPR naming her one of its 25 Most Influential Women Musicians of the 21st Century and to American Songwritercalling her “one of the most important musical minds currently walking the planet.”
For her highly anticipated third solo studio album, You’re The One, which came out August 18 on Nonesuch Records, she recruited producer Jack Splash (Kendrick Lamar, Solange, Alicia Keys, Valerie June, Tank and the Bangas) to help her bring this collection of songs that she’d written over the course of her career – her first album of all originals – to life at Criteria Recording Studios in Miami last November. Together with a band composed of Giddens’s closest musical collaborators from the past decade alongside Miami-based musicians from Splash’s own Rolodex, and topped off with a horn section making an impressive ten- to twelve-person ensemble, they drew from the folk music that Giddens knows so deeply and its pop descendants.
You’re The One features electric and upright bass, conga, Cajun and piano accordions, guitars, a Western string section and Miami horns, among other instruments. “I hope that people just hear American music,” Giddens says. “Blues, jazz, Cajun, country, gospel and rock – it’s all there. I like to be where it meets organically.”
The album is in line with her previous work, as she explains, because it’s yet another kind of project she’s never done before. “I just wanted to expand my sound palette,” Giddens says. “I feel like I’ve done lots in the acoustic realm, and I certainly will again. But these songs really needed a larger field.”
The album teems with Giddens’ breadth of knowledge of, curiosity about, and experience with American vernacular musics. Though it might be filtered through a slightly more familiar blend of sounds, You’re The One never forsakes depth and groundedness for its listenability.
Giddens also is exploring other mediums and creative possibilities just as actively as she has American musical history. With 1858 replica minstrel banjo in hand, she wrote the opera Omar with film composer Michael Abels (Get Out, Us, Nope) which received the 2023 Pulitzer Prize in Music, and, with her partner Francesco Turrisi, she wrote and performed the music for Black Lucy and the Bard, which was recorded for PBS’ Great Performances; she has appeared on the ABC hit drama Nashville and throughout Ken Burns’ Country Music series, also on PBS.
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 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.
“I’ve been able to create a lot of different things around stories that are difficult to tell, and managed to get them done in a way that’s gotten noticed,” Giddens said. “I know who to collaborate with, and it has gotten me into all sorts of corners that I would have never expected when I started doing this.”
ABOUT CHARLY LOWRY
Charly Lowry, a musical powerhouse from Pembroke, NC, is proud to be an Indigenous woman belonging to the Lumbee/Tuscarora Tribes. She is passionate about raising awareness around issues that plague underdeveloped and under-served communities. Since her teenage years, Lowry has established a career as a professional singer-songwriter with unique passion and voice. In addition to performing solo, for more than ten years Lowry has been the front-woman for the multi award-winning band, Dark Water Rising. Most recently, Lowry and the members of her newest project, Charly & The Sunshine, were selected by the U.S. Department of State and American Music Abroad to participate in the 2021-2022 American Music Abroad Virtual Season.
Among her community, Native women are traditionally barred from the hand-drum and relegated to singing behind the men’s drum and/or dancing instead. Lowry defies that norm, following in the footsteps of her mentor, an artist and heir to the Tuscarora Indian Nation, Pura Fé; choosing to battle with her songs, hand drum and guitar to deliver songs that not only tell the plight of her people but all humankind that face oppression. Robeson County, her home, is one of the most diverse counties in the U.S., and Lowry celebrates that diversity in all aspects of her life. While she may be familiar to some from her success as a semi-finalist on American Idol, she has maintained close ties to her Native American roots and culture. It is important to her to express the struggle, sacrifice, and obstacles her people have overcome throughout history.
She serves as a voice for her ancestors, as well as the youth of today and remains committed to music that honors roots but lives vibrantly in the here and now.
ABOUT UCSB ARTS & LECTURES
Founded in 1959, UCSB Arts & Lectures (A&L) is the largest and most influential arts and lectures organization between Los Angeles and San Francisco. A&L annually presents more than a hundred public events, from critically acclaimed concerts and dance performances by world-renowned artists to talks by groundbreaking authors and film series at UCSB and Santa Barbara-area venues. With a mission to “educate, entertain and inspire,” A&L also oversees an outreach program that brings visiting artists and speakers into local classrooms and other venues for master classes, open rehearsals, discussions and more, serving K-12 students, college students and the general public.
Rhiannon Giddens is presented by UCSB Arts & Lectures.
Tickets are $125 Gold Circle (preferred seating) / $90 / $65 / $45 / $19 UCSB students (Current student ID required) (An Arlington facility fee will be added to each ticket price)
Event Sponsors: Jody & John Arnhold, Kath Lavidge & Ed McKinley and Laura & Geof Wyatt
Special Thanks: Voice Magazine and KCSB 91.9 FM
For tickets or more information, call UCSB Arts & Lectures at (805) 893-3535 or purchase online at www.ArtsAndLectures.UCSB.edu.
Tickets are also available through the Arlington box office at (805) 963-4408 and AXS.
UCSB Arts & Lectures gratefully acknowledges our Community Partners the Natalie Orfalea Foundation & Lou Buglioli for their generous support of the 2023-2024 season.