Rhiannon Giddens begins an extensive US tour, with music from her new album, Freedom Highway, at the Stagecoach festival in California on Friday. She takes the tour across the Southwest, down to New Orleans and Atlanta, up to her home state of North Carolina and to DC, Boston, Philadelphia, and NYC's Lincoln Center. The tour resumes in June and continues through the summer, with headlining shows across the South and Midwest and festivals like Spoleto, Newport Folk, Newport Jazz, and ROMP.

When Nonesuch Records celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2014, with festivals at the Barbican in London and the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), Kronos Quartet joined forces with labelmates Sam Amidon, Olivia Chaney, Rhiannon Giddens, and Natalie Merchant to perform a concert entitled Folk Songs. The group later recorded the songs, most of which are traditional with contemporary arrangements, with Doug Petty as producer. Folk Songs will be released June 9, 2017, and is available to pre-order with an instant download of the track "The Butcher's Boy," featuring Merchant.

Rhiannon Giddens has shared a new video for "Following the North Star," an instrumental track she wrote for her new album, Freedom Highway. She wrote or co-wrote nine of the songs on the album, which also includes a traditional tune and two civil rights-era songs. The video was made by Harvey K. Robinson at The Cypress House in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, the studio of multi-instrumentalist Dirk Powell, who co-produced Freedom Highway with Giddens there. You can watch it here.

The line-up for the Funhouse Fest in Williamsburg, Virginia, has been announced, and among the featured performers are three Nonesuch artists: Lake Street Dive, who perform on Saturday, June 24; Rhiannon Giddens, who takes thes stage on Sunday, June 25; and The Staves, who perform their own set on Saturday and are joined by the chamber ensemble yMusic on Sunday. Funhouse Fest is curated by Bruce Hornsby and takes place on the lawn of the Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg, as part of the Virginia Arts Festival.

Rhiannon Giddens has shared a video for "Come Love Come," a song she wrote for her new album, Freedom Highway. The video was made by Harvey K. Robinson at The Cypress House in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, the studio of multi-instrumentalist Dirk Powell, who co-produced Freedom Highway with Giddens there. Watch it here.

Rhiannon Giddens has shared a behind-the-scenes video offering a brief look at the making of her acclaimed new album, Freedom Highway. She co-produced the album with multi-instrumentalist Dirk Powell in his Breaux Bridge, LA, studio, with the bulk of recording done in wooden rooms built prior to the Civil War. "It's so personal," Giddens says in the video. "But it's not just personal in the way that these are my stories. It's personal in that ... it's a huge chunk of my soul." Watch the video, directed by Harvey K. Robinson, here.

Rhiannon Giddens's new album, Freedom Highway, was released on Friday to great critical acclaim. Giddens spent the day at Sing Sing prison, working with and performing for inmates as a part of Carnegie Hall's Musical Connections program. "Giddens is an immensely talented singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist with the instincts of a musical historian," says WFUV, which named Freedom Highway its New Dig of the week. "On this new collection, she expertly and powerfully tells the stories of those who could not and bears witness to their struggle ... Freedom Highway is welcome, relevant and important." The Los Angeles Times says: "It’s a powerful collection made all the more visceral by the stripped-down instrumental accompaniment around full-force-gale vocals in big moments, and delicate pleadings when songs are at their most intimate."

Freedom Highway, Rhiannon Giddens' follow-up to her highly praised solo debut album, Tomorrow Is My Turn, is out now. It's a "rich collection," says NPR. "[H]ope comes back to life in Giddens' music." Pitchfork exclaims: "Rhiannon Giddens emerges as a peerless and powerful voice in roots music on her second solo album." The AP calls it "a rich tapestry with threads of blues, folk, gospel, soul, country and jazz ... rootsy and relevant, delivered with crystal-clear emotion and understated musical skill." Uncut names this "remarkably wise and timely new album" its Album of the Month. It earns four stars in American Songwriter, Irish Times ("a record for and of our times"), Observer, and Guardian, which calls it a "powerful and timely set."

Rhiannon Giddens has announced an extensive US tour this spring, including several new shows that go on sale this Friday, the day her new album, Freedom Highway, will be released. Following several intimate performances in the Northeast in March with Dirk Powell, with whom she co-produced the album, and a performance in a multi-artist tribute to Aretha Franklin at Carnegie Hall, Giddens heads to Europe and Australia to tour. She returns to the US in April to tour, starting at the Stagecoach festival in California on April 28. The tour includes headline shows throughout the country and festival sets at New Orleans Jazz Fest, Newport Folk, Newport Jazz, Spoleto, ROMP, and more.

Rhiannon Giddens's new album, Freedom Highway, is due next Friday, February 24. But you don't need to wait till then to hear it: the album is streaming in full here as an NPR First Listen. It's a "rich collection, the latest chapter in the 40-year-old master folklorist, banjo virtuoso and vocal powerhouse's epic retelling of our history with its sins and sorrows—and joy born of resilience—fully reinstated," says NPR. "[H]ope comes back to life in Giddens' music."

Rhiannon Giddens's five-song EP Factory Girl, first released on vinyl and digitally in late 2015, is now available on CD for the first time. The EP, which is up for Grammy Awards for Best American Roots Performance and Best Folk Album, is culled from the T Bone Burnett–produced sessions that yielded Giddens's acclaimed solo debut album, Tomorrow Is My Turn. "It's a clutch of tunes that work together like the cards in a winning poker hand," the New York Times says of Factory Girl. "Her accompaniment … points to an ageless gold standard for American roots music." "Deftly curated, gorgeously sung," says NPR, "this EP is America." Her new album, Freedom Highway, is due February 24.

Rhiannon Giddens has unveiled a third song from her forthcoming album, Freedom Highway, called "Hey Bébé," which you can hear in a lyric video here. The song is one of nine original songs Giddens wrote or co-wrote on the album, which also includes a traditional tune and two civil rights–era songs. She co-wrote "Hey Bébé" with Dirk Powell, who co-produced the album with her. Download "Hey Bébé," "At the Purchaser's Option," and "Freedom Highway" now with pre-orders of the album.