Centrum Gala and Benefit Concert with Rhiannon Giddens

CENTRUM 2024 BENEFIT CONCERT & GALA

FEATURING
RHIANNON GIDDENS

MONDAY, AUGUST 12, 2024 | 5:00 P.M. | MCCURDY PAVILION & FORT WORDEN COMMONS, PORT TOWNSEND

Centrum is honored to invite you to its annual benefit concert and gala with the incomparable Rhiannon Giddens. The event will include a performance by Giddens and her five-piece band, followed by a lively dinner, fan-favorite dessert auction, and Fund-A-Dream paddle raise. The evening is Centrum's most important annual source of scholarship funds. Thank you for being part of the community that supports Centrum and this celebration of creativity in community!

Rhiannon Giddens has made an iconic career out of stretching her brand of folk music, with its miles-deep historical roots and contemporary sensibilities, into just about every field imaginable. A two-time GRAMMY Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning singer and instrumentalist, MacArthur "Genius" grant recipient, and composer of opera, ballet, and film, Giddens has centered her work around the mission of lifting up people whose contributions to American musical history have previously been overlooked or erased.

Giddens has been faculty at Centrum three times, in both Fiddle Tunes and Voice Works programs, most recently in 2017. 

With 1858 replica minstrel banjo in hand, she wrote the opera Omar with film composer Michael Abels (Get Out, Us, Nope) which received the 2023 Pulitzer Prize in Music, and, with her partner Francesco Turrisi, she wrote and performed the music for Black Lucy and the Bard, which was recorded for PBS' Great Performances; she has appeared on the ABC hit drama Nashville and throughout Ken Burns' Country Music series, also on PBS. She sang for the Obamas at the White House; is a three-time NPR Tiny Desk Concert alum; and hosts her own show on PBS, My Music with Rhiannon Giddens. Most recently, she played banjo on Beyonce's latest single. 

We are thrilled to welcome Rhiannon back to Centrum to perform for an unforgettable benefit concert and gala dinner. The night is Centrum's most important annual source of scholarship and program support, and a time to come together to celebrate creativity in community with the supporters who make our work possible. We hope you will join us for this very special evening!