The American Academy of Teachers of Singing is pleased to recognize Rhiannon Giddens with an AATS Award for Inclusion, Inspiration, and Education “in recognition 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.”

Rhiannon Giddens is a two-time GRAMMY Award-winning singer and multi-instrumentalist, MacArthur “Genius” grant recipient, Pulitzer Prize winner (Omar), and composer of opera, ballet, and film. As singer, instrumentalist, and composer she explores her musical and historical roots in country, blues, jazz, Cajun, gospel and rock—or as she states in her bio “American Music.” A founding member of the landmark Black string band Carolina Chocolate Drops, and the all-female banjo supergroup, Our Native Daughters, Giddens is as much a curator as a creator. She is the current Artistic Director of the Yo-Yo Ma-founded Silkroad Ensemble, hosts a TV show on PBS, My Music with Rhiannon Giddens, and has hosted two podcasts (Aria Code from New York City’s NPR affiliate station WQXR, which ran for three seasons, and American Railroad from Silkroad). In 2025, she will launch her own music festival in Durham, NC called Biscuits & Banjos, to celebrate Black culture outside the mainstream.

 Giddens is an innovator and arts educator who has made it her mission to introduce and educate audiences to the importance of American folk music in the African American culture as a part of our greater American culture. To quote from her bio: 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. 

https://rhiannongiddens.com