Rhiannon Giddens & Francesco Turrisi

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Karen Cox

Rhiannon Giddens and Francesco Turrisi.

Musical partners Giddens and Turrisi, both living in Ireland when the pandemic shut down the world in 2020, managed to navigate a few days of recording. The result was the 2021 album They're Calling Me Home, a consideration of the human need for a safe place to call home (which might be on the eternal side in some cases). It's a masterful set of songs mixing re-envisioned traditional material and originals. In-person tickets are sold out, but a livestream is available.

media release: Rhiannon Giddens will perform select US dates beginning November 5, in support of They’re Calling Me Home, released in April and deemed “her finest work to date” (No Depression). It has been another remarkable year for the accomplished musician, composer, author, podcast host and beyond.  

Giddens was not planning to release an album in 2021 but was moved by the moment to do so. They’re Calling Me Home (Nonesuch) was recorded in just a few days in a small studio in her adopted home near Dublin during lockdown in the early phases of the pandemic. Created with her musical partner Francesco Turrisi, the album is brimming with the feelings of missing home and loss, and features the songs that Giddens and Turrisi reached to in need of comfort.  

They’re Calling Me Home was celebrated widely and led to interviews with NPR Music, NPR’s Here & Now, the Washington Post, Rolling Stone, Object of Sound with Hanif Aburraqib and beyond. Giddens has been featured in several pieces in the New York Times over the past 6 months that spotlight not only the new album but the Aria Code podcast she hosts in partnership with WNYC and the Metropolitan Opera, and even her love for soprano Maria Callas.  

Giddens and Turrisi will be playing selections from the album on this tour in November. It was also recently announced that she’ll be performing at Stagecoach in 2022. Other recent live performance highlights include her debut at the Ojai Festival in California this past September. She also performed at the Kennedy Center Honors (in tribute to Joan Baez), and appeared at the CMT Awards to pay tribute to the pioneering country artist Linda Martell.  

In July Giddens shared an audio documentary that explores her remarkable life and the music that shaped her in this Audible Original Balance To Bridges episode. She also revealed a 4-book publishing deal with Candlewick Press, the first of which will be released in fall 2022.