Rhiannon Giddens to perform at Purdue University on Sept. 15

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Musician Rhiannon Giddens will bring her “Freedom Highway Tour” to the Stewart Center’s Loeb Playhouse on Sept.  15 at 8 p.m. This performance is presented by Purdue Convocations with support from the Davis Family Endowment, Student Concert Committee and the Student Fee Advisory Board.

Ticket holders are invited to purchase tickets to a pre-show dinner hosted by the Purdue Memorial Union’s Sagamore Room from 5:30-7:30 p.m. More information on the dinner is available at www.convocations.org/dinner. 

Rhiannon Giddens is an American original, culling the music and lyrics of our nation’s past to point the way to a brighter future, with a voice that is emotionally fearless, unforgettably dexterous, and “a perpetually soulful marvel,” according to the New York Times. Raised amid the rich old-time traditions of North Carolina’s Piedmont region, Giddens pivoted from an Oberlin-curated career in opera to American roots and rhythm and blues music, first as co-founder of the Grammy-winning Carolina Chocolate Drops (who graced Purdue’s stage in 2011) and now as an acclaimed solo vocalist, banjoist, and fiddler. Giddens also recently dueted with country sensation Eric Church on his hit single “Kill a Word.” She joined T Bone Burnett and Elvis Costello in adding music to newly discovered Bob Dylan lyrics in The New Basement Tapes project, and performed a recurring role on the CMT series Nashville.

Giddens’ latest album, 2017’s Freedom Highway, is a sonically diverse, 200-year journey through the power of African-American songcraft. The struggles and successes showcased in this mixture of original and traditional works reverberate across generations, as musically at home in 1817 as it is in 2017. Drawing on slave narratives from the 1800s, the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, and contemporary African-American experiences, Giddens captures, in her words, “voices demanding to be heard, to impart the hard-earned wisdom of a tangled, difficult, complicated history.” Freedom Highway is by turns buoyantly playful with “Hey Bébé,” gently poignant with “We Could Fly,” tearfully heartbreaking with “At the Purchaser’s Option,” and powerfully polemic with “Better Get it Right the First Time.” Simultaneously horrified and inspired by history, Giddens understands our nation is only as strong as all of its people and no true prosperity can be found if any voice is left unheard.

Tickets are $28 for adults and $24 for children 18 years and younger, Purdue students and Ivy Tech Lafayette students. Tickets are available at the Stewart Center box office at 765-494-3933 or 800-914-SHOW. Group tickets are also available to groups of 10 more. Call 765-496-1977 for more details or visit https://purdue.edu/convocations/group-sales/ .

Initiated in 1902, Purdue Convocations was one of the first professional performing arts presenters in the United States. Each year, Convocations offers the region 30-40 performances of widely varying genres: Broadway-style shows, theater, dance, children's theater, world music, jazz, and chamber music, along with rock, pop, country and comedy attractions. With a vision for connecting artists and audiences in artistic dialogue and for drawing in academic discourse, Purdue Convocations aims to promote frequent exposure to and familiarity with human cultural expression in a multitude of forms and media. 

Source: Abby Eddy, Purdue Convocations director of marketing, 765-494-9712, aeeddy@purdue.edu 

Note to Journalists: Publication-quality photos are available at http://www.convocations.org/press