Rhiannon Giddens

Rhiannon Giddens learnt fiddle and banjo from the elderly North Carolina fiddler Joe Thompson, one of the last Black string-band players of his generation, and co-founded the Carolina Chocolate Drops to carry that repertoire on. Her research and performances have restored the banjo's African and African American history to public view. A Pulitzer Prize for music for the opera Omar shows how far the work has travelled from those lessons.