The Music of Rhiannon Giddens / Silkroad Ensemble

»Omar and Lucy, Black Stories Real and Imagined« – Reflektor Rhiannon Giddens

Mazz Swift
Mazz Swift © Adam Gurczak / Almanak Creative
Karan Ouzounian
Karan Ouzounian © Adam Gurczak / Almanak Creative
Shawn Conley
Shawn Conley © Adam Gurczak / Almanak Creative
Lara Downes
Lara Downes © Ebru Yildiz
  • Doors open 19:00

  • Start 20:00

Omar and Lucy

Everything Rhiannon Giddens does is a success: the American folk singer has long been recognised as an author, presenter and composer of music for film, ballet and opera – she was awarded the prestigious Pulitzer Prize for her opera »Omar«. With the Silkroad Ensemble, of which she is the artistic director, Giddens presents excerpts from »Omar« and the ballet »Black Lucy and the Bard«.

Created together with Michael Abels, »Omar« tells the story of the scholar Omar ibn Said, who was abducted from what is now Senegal and enslaved in the United States. Giddens combines bluegrass, gospel, spirituals and African as well as Arabic influences into a musical language that celebrates spiritual strength and cultural identity – what The New York Times described as »an effortless ideal of the American sound«.

»Black Lucy and the Bard«, composed together with her long-time artistic collaborator Francesco Turrisi, is based on Caroline Randall Williams’s poetry collection »Lucy Negro, Redux«, which reimagines Shakespeare’s sonnets from the perspective of a Black woman. In arrangements for piano quintet, members of Giddens’s Silkroad Ensemble now present both works as part of her »Reflektor« festival.

Performers

Mazz Swift violin

Tim-Erik Winzer viola

Karen Ouzounian violoncello

Shawn Conley double bass

Lara Downes piano

Programme

»Omar and Lucy, Black Stories Real and Imagined«
The Music of Rhiannon Giddens featuring members of the Silkroad Ensemble

Festival

Reflektor Rhiannon Giddens

Promoter: HamburgMusik

Supported by the Stiftung Elbphilharmonie

During your visit

Elbphilharmonie Plaza

A public viewing platform on the 8th floor of the Elbphilharmonie

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Before the concert and in the interval

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Coughing, clapping, chatting

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