Preview
  • To Balance on Bridges

  • Words + Music, Vol. 19
  • By: Rhiannon Giddens
  • Narrated by: Rhiannon Giddens
  • Length: 1 hr and 28 mins
  • 4.8 out of 5 stars (1,022 ratings)

To Balance on Bridges

By: Rhiannon Giddens
Narrated by: Rhiannon Giddens
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Publisher's summary

Rhiannon Giddens possesses the power to express herself and the human experience like few others. Journey with the inimitable folk musician and MacArthur "Genius Grant" recipient as the celebrated artist examines the multitude of influences and identities that have led her to a life "nestled in the nexus” - defined and further made whole by the sum of her parts.

Blending songs and stories from shared and personal histories, To Balance on Bridges finds Giddens in continued pursuit of truth in all its raw and underexposed forms. Performing tracks from several of her acclaimed albums, Giddens leads listeners through a multitude of musical styles, lyrical patterns, and instrumentation confronting questions on race, culture, appropriation, and class with searing precision. Hear an indelible artist reflect vividly on her own path as she, in turn, sheds light on our deeply connected journey ahead.

©2021 Rhiannon Giddens (P)2021 Audible Originals, LLC.

About the Creator and Performer

The acclaimed musician Rhiannon Giddens uses her art to excavate the past and reveal bold truths about our present. A MacArthur "Genius Grant" recipient, Giddens co-founded the Grammy Award-winning Carolina Chocolate Drops, and has been nominated for six additional Grammys for her work as a soloist and collaborator. She was most recently nominated for her collaboration with multi-instrumentalist Francesco Turrisi, there is no Other (2019). Giddens’s latest album, They’re Calling Me Home, is a twelve-track album, recorded with Turrisi in Ireland during the recent lockdown; it speaks of the longing for the comfort of home as well as the metaphorical "call home" of death, which has been a tragic reality for so many during the COVID-19 crisis.
Giddens’s lifelong mission is to lift up people whose contributions to American musical history have previously been erased, and to work toward a more accurate understanding of the country’s musical origins. Among her many diverse career highlights, Giddens has performed for the Obamas at the White House, received an inaugural Legacy of Americana Award from Nashville’s National Museum of African American History in partnership with the Americana Music Association, and her critical acclaim includes in-depth profiles by CBS Sunday Morning, The New York Times, The New Yorker, and NPR’s Fresh Air, among many others.
Named Artistic Director of Silkroad in 2020, Giddens is developing a number of new programs for the organization, including one inspired by the history of the American transcontinental railroad and the cultures and music of its builders. She recently wrote the music for an original ballet, Lucy Negro Redux, for Nashville Ballet (premiered in 2019), and the libretto and music for an original opera, Omar, based on the autobiography of the enslaved man Omar Ibn Said for the Spoleto USA Festival (premieres in 2022).
As an actor, Giddens had a featured role on the television series Nashville.

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