Our first Wigmore Hall concert of the year. We had been looking forward to this concert as something rather different…which it was. It was also very different from the concert as promoted. The rubric mentioned banjo and tambourine. Rhiannon apologised for that, as she explained that she and Francesco were currently working on voice and piano.
No-one seemed to mind. The audience mostly comprised Rhiannon fans, from what we could make out. We didn’t recognise fellow Wigmore-istas. Which is a good thing in our view. We are great believers in the Wig opening up to different artists and styles.
The music Rhiannon Giddens and Francesco Turrisi played us was delightful and of the highest quality, albeit relentlessly downbeat in mood. Leonard Cohen and John Dowland had nothing on this pair in the gloom department.
Rhiannon is a charismatic performer, who can clearly shift between musical styles and spoken languages in a seemingly effortless way.
She did get caught out on the piece they were premiering that night, when the music page technology let her down. She stopped, explained the problem and asked if we wanted her to start again?
Yes please…
…we all shouted. So she started again.
Francesco explained with great enthusiasm that he had been afforded the honour and opportunity to play The Old Lady – the older of the two Steinway pianos at The Wig that rarely gets an outing. I had thought that the piano looked a little different when we arrived. The headline photo shows The Old Lady with our reflections in it as I snapped it on exit.
There’s not a lot of on-line video showing Rhiannon Giddens performing with Francesco Turrisi, but the following YouTube (which also includes one other musician), shows one of the most moving pieces they played: American Tune by Paul Simon:
We thoroughly enjoyed this concert and will look out for other concerts in Rhiannon Giddens Wigmore Hall residency. We might get to hear the banjo and tambourine next time. Or something completely different. I don’t suppose we’d much mind.
Ian (and anyone else) go for the banjo events. She is amazing
Cheers Robert. Good to hear from you. Here is a link to a video of Rhiannon Giddens performing the song she used as her opening number at our concert, but in the video she’s playing the minstrel banjo. It is such a powerful song and she has such a great voice, it would probably sound amazing however she performed it, but I think it does sound better…at least more authentic, with the banjo. https://youtu.be/DVrTf5yOW5s?list=RDDVrTf5yOW5s