Rhiannon Giddens
Rhiannon Giddens has won two Grammy awards for her folk music albums, and a Pulitzer Prize for her opera, Omar, proving that she\u2019s a musician who can\u2019t be quickly categorised.
She grew up in Greensboro, North Carolina, and as a singer, fiddle and banjo player, she\u2019s been fired by a desire to chart and reclaim the stories of people whose contributions to American music have been overlooked or erased. Her musical journey originally had a rather different destination: she trained as a classical soprano at the Oberlin Conservatory in Ohio.
Now she draws on all these musical traditions as a composer for ballet, opera and film. She also finds time for acting \u2013 appearing in the TV series Nashville about the tangled lives of country music stars \u2013 she presents podcasts and has even written children\u2019s books.
Her music choices include Bach, Dvorak, Duke Ellington and Stephen Sondheim.