This is Fresh Air, I'm Terry Gross. I want to thank Dave Davies for hosting last week while I took the week off.

Yesterday was Juneteenth, the holiday commemorating the end of slavery in the U.S.

It's been celebrated by African Americans in various forms since 1865,

and last year was recognized as an official federal holiday.

It fell on a Sunday this year, so many people have the day off today to celebrate.

We're going to observe Juneteenth by featuring our interview with songwriter singer and musician, Rianne and Giddens,

who has set several slave narratives to music.

She first featured some of them on her album Freedom Highway,

which was released on 2017 when we recorded this interview.

She has a beautiful voice, and she brought her banjo with her to sing some of her songs.

Giddens has a personal and musical background that crosses boundaries.

She grew up in North Carolina, the daughter of an African American mother, and a white father.

She studied opera at Oberlin, but she found her musical identity after graduation

when she started playing string band music from the 1920s and 30s,

with songs based on African American musical traditions.

She co-founded the band The Carolina Chocolate Drops, and in the same year of our interview,

she was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship, commonly known as the Genius Award.

In 2020, she was named artistic director of Silk Road, the ensemble and cultural organization

founded by Yo-Yo Ma.

She wrote the libretto and music for the original opera Omar,

based on the autobiography of an enslaved man.

It premiered last month at the Spoletto Festival.

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