Rhiannon Giddens Francesco Turissi Tradfest Assembly Rooms 28th April 2023 review
Rhiannon Giddens with Francesco Turissi at the Assembly Rooms Edinburgh tonight featured an added date to their current tour schedule to launch the start of Tradfest 2023, a 10 day celebration of traditional and folk music featuring a diverse programme of artists from different countries and cultural backgrounds.
This was my first opportunity to catch up with Rhiannon Giddens, a Grammy-award-winning multi-instrumentalist, singer and composer, and I was more than curious to see if all the positive press and reviews I had heard about her over the years were true. I wanted to get some idea of who Rhiannon Giddens was both as a performer and a person, and this 90 minute set with multi-instrumentalist Francesco Turissi, answered more than a few of my questions.
It is clear that Rhiannon Giddens is not just a songwriter/performer, she is a seeker of truths, someone who is searching for answers to many questions and along the way finding many unexpected connections between people and cultures across the world.
Whenever people travel, for whatever reason, whether that be by choice or by forced removal from their homelands, they so often take their culture, their beliefs, maybe even a little of their collective soul with them and all of this is often expressed in their music and dance. This creates an almost global tapestry that never stops being created as old strands get woven into new ones and, often in the process as cultures mix together, new music and dance, new stories, new cultures are created. If you pull some of these old threads just a little though you will often find they contain truths in their words, in their music, that all too many people either do not want to know about or to confront. The Roots music that Rhiannon Giddens searches for and listens to from those who pass their stories on to her is often a surviving witness to those who have been oppressed by others. Not all stories are dark though and there are also stories of love, pleasure and just the joy of living in this rich cultural heritage that seems to be common to so many people.
Rhiannon Giddens took us right back to the classic blues sounds of the 1930s with a song made famous by Bessie James, “O Death” then took us straight into “Following The North Star”. Put together the two created a hypnotic, almost shamanistic soundscape.
Although Rhiannon Giddens’ focus is often looking at the Roots music of America, the country itself is a melting pot of many different people and cultural backgrounds, but often their music and their stories reveal that we often as people have far more in common than we realise and Scottish, Italian and Castilian songs bore witness to this.
We have so much in common, and bawdy ballads/songs are common across the world. When Bessie Smith sang “Need A Little Sugar In My Bowl”, everyone knew just what she was talking about, and Rhiannon gave us all a fun little musical tribute to this world of double entendre. This tradition is also so common here, it is a part of British music hall history, and even Robert Burns was known for his subtle and not too subtle songs.
Searching out the history and the truths of Root music is only a part of Rhiannon Giddens’ interests and her creative interests are diverse, and included in this set list was music from “Lucy Negro Redux”. This ballet features original music from Rhiannon based on a book of poetry by Caroline Randall Williams that reads Shakespeare’s “dark lady” sonnets as written to a black woman. This work, which premiered in 2019, was commissioned by Nashville Ballet.
Musical instruments are obviously a huge part of any musical culture and it was good to be reminded tonight just how important the banjo in all of its variants (including the Cello Banjo played by Francesco Turissi) has historically been. There was a reminder here that it even pre-dates the guitar as the instrument of choice by many people for playing blues music.
This was a diverse set list from Rhiannon Giddens with Francesco Turissi which always means that some songs are going to please some people more than others, but the applause at the end by the audience said everything that there was to say.
Opening this evening’s musical programme were two young musicians who, despite their age, have been playing music together for over ten years, Roo & Neil, aka Roo Geddes and Neil Sutcliffe who are combining their shared love of Classical, Folk and Jazz music to create their own distinctive sounds. This opening set gave us some music from their debut album (out now) “Homelands”.
It was, for me, interesting in this short set of three songs to see how Roo (violin) and Neil (accordion) were using so many techniques to play, including Roo’s use of pizzicato (plucked not drawn) and strumming on violin. Together both are creating for “Homelands” songs that are all about that feeling of a place being special and sharing music, laughter, stories, and good times with friends.
Tradfest runs from 28th April to 9th May across a variety of venues. For more information visit https://edinburghtradfest.com/
Review by Tom King © 2023
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com
This was my first opportunity to catch up with Rhiannon Giddens, a Grammy-award-winning multi-instrumentalist, singer and composer, and I was more than curious to see if all the positive press and reviews I had heard about her over the years were true. I wanted to get some idea of who Rhiannon Giddens was both as a performer and a person, and this 90 minute set with multi-instrumentalist Francesco Turissi, answered more than a few of my questions.
It is clear that Rhiannon Giddens is not just a songwriter/performer, she is a seeker of truths, someone who is searching for answers to many questions and along the way finding many unexpected connections between people and cultures across the world.
Whenever people travel, for whatever reason, whether that be by choice or by forced removal from their homelands, they so often take their culture, their beliefs, maybe even a little of their collective soul with them and all of this is often expressed in their music and dance. This creates an almost global tapestry that never stops being created as old strands get woven into new ones and, often in the process as cultures mix together, new music and dance, new stories, new cultures are created. If you pull some of these old threads just a little though you will often find they contain truths in their words, in their music, that all too many people either do not want to know about or to confront. The Roots music that Rhiannon Giddens searches for and listens to from those who pass their stories on to her is often a surviving witness to those who have been oppressed by others. Not all stories are dark though and there are also stories of love, pleasure and just the joy of living in this rich cultural heritage that seems to be common to so many people.
Rhiannon Giddens took us right back to the classic blues sounds of the 1930s with a song made famous by Bessie James, “O Death” then took us straight into “Following The North Star”. Put together the two created a hypnotic, almost shamanistic soundscape.
Although Rhiannon Giddens’ focus is often looking at the Roots music of America, the country itself is a melting pot of many different people and cultural backgrounds, but often their music and their stories reveal that we often as people have far more in common than we realise and Scottish, Italian and Castilian songs bore witness to this.
We have so much in common, and bawdy ballads/songs are common across the world. When Bessie Smith sang “Need A Little Sugar In My Bowl”, everyone knew just what she was talking about, and Rhiannon gave us all a fun little musical tribute to this world of double entendre. This tradition is also so common here, it is a part of British music hall history, and even Robert Burns was known for his subtle and not too subtle songs.
Searching out the history and the truths of Root music is only a part of Rhiannon Giddens’ interests and her creative interests are diverse, and included in this set list was music from “Lucy Negro Redux”. This ballet features original music from Rhiannon based on a book of poetry by Caroline Randall Williams that reads Shakespeare’s “dark lady” sonnets as written to a black woman. This work, which premiered in 2019, was commissioned by Nashville Ballet.
Musical instruments are obviously a huge part of any musical culture and it was good to be reminded tonight just how important the banjo in all of its variants (including the Cello Banjo played by Francesco Turissi) has historically been. There was a reminder here that it even pre-dates the guitar as the instrument of choice by many people for playing blues music.
This was a diverse set list from Rhiannon Giddens with Francesco Turissi which always means that some songs are going to please some people more than others, but the applause at the end by the audience said everything that there was to say.
Opening this evening’s musical programme were two young musicians who, despite their age, have been playing music together for over ten years, Roo & Neil, aka Roo Geddes and Neil Sutcliffe who are combining their shared love of Classical, Folk and Jazz music to create their own distinctive sounds. This opening set gave us some music from their debut album (out now) “Homelands”.
It was, for me, interesting in this short set of three songs to see how Roo (violin) and Neil (accordion) were using so many techniques to play, including Roo’s use of pizzicato (plucked not drawn) and strumming on violin. Together both are creating for “Homelands” songs that are all about that feeling of a place being special and sharing music, laughter, stories, and good times with friends.
Tradfest runs from 28th April to 9th May across a variety of venues. For more information visit https://edinburghtradfest.com/
Review by Tom King © 2023
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com
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