Rhiannon Giddens; Francesco Turrisi

Giddens has centred 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. She is joined by Turin-born Francesco Turrisi whose Dublin base reflects his global sensibilities. Through a chance musical meet-up in Ireland, they found that Giddens’s 19th-century American minstrel banjo tunes and Turrisi’s traditional Sicilian Tamburello (tambourine) rhythms fit very naturally together.