Alaska Folk Festival leadership announced this afternoon on social media that the guest artists for the 50th festival will be Rhiannon Giddens and Dirk Powell.
Both artists have won multiple Grammys. And they’ve both come to Juneau’s Folk Fest before: Giddens in 2007 as a member of the Carolina Chocolate Drops and Powell as an attendee several decades ago.
The two have worked together for years, and played together just last week at a festival in Ireland.
Giddens was named a MacArthur Genius Fellow in 2017, and won a 2023 Pulitzer Prize for the opera “Omar,” which she cocomposed and performed. It’s based on a memoir written by an enslaved Muslim man in 1831.
Giddens has been a member of notable ensembles, like the New Basement Tapes, and has released five solo albums.
According to her website, Giddens is debuting her own music festival in Durham, North Carolina, two weeks after Folk Fest.
Powell has toured with folk legend Joan Baez, and recorded albums with artists like Eric Clapton and Loretta Lynn.
The 50th Alaska Folk Festival is April 7 to 13 at Centennial Hall in Juneau.
