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Press Releases
Silkroad and Rhiannon Giddens to Release American Railroad Album and Podcast in November 2024
Part of Silkroad’s multi-year initiative, these musical and narrative projects allow audiences to delve deeper into the story of the Transcontinental Railroad and the people who built it
Listen to the first single “Swannanoa Tunnel / Steel-Driving Man,” featuring Rhiannon Giddens on vocals, and watch accompanying video—available today
Pre-order the album
Listen to the podcast teaser and subscribe
Buy tickets to the upcoming tour
Boston, MA — Today, Silkroad announces the release dates for two musical and narrative projects as part of its multi-year American Railroad initiative: an eponymous album and a podcast series, making the history and stories behind the project accessible to broader audiences. The album will be released by Nonesuch Records on November 15 and the first episode of the podcast, in partnership with PRX, will drop on November 14—both coinciding with Silkroad’s upcoming American Railroad tour. The first track from the album, Silkroad Artistic Director Rhiannon Giddens’s arrangement of the traditional songs “Swannanoa Tunnel / Steel-Driving Man,” is available today, along with an accompanying performance video.
The American Railroad album reflects the program for Silkroad’s inaugural American Railroad tour in Fall 2023. Its 13 tracks include commissioned pieces by Cécile McLorin Salvant, Suzanne Kite, and Silkroad artist Wu Man, as well as new arrangements of songs by Rhiannon Giddens and fellow Silkroad artists Haruka Fujii, Maeve Gilchrist, and Mazz Swift. Rounding out the album are original compositions and arrangements by Silkroad artists Pura Fé, Sandeep Das, Niwel Tsumbu, and Kaoru Watanabe. American Railroad was recorded live during tour stops at the Green Music Center in Sonoma, CA and Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley, CA; it is co-produced by Giddens, Watanabe, and Jody Elff.
The first single from the album, Rhiannon Giddens’s arrangement of the traditional songs “Swannanoa Tunnel / Steel-Driving Man,” is available today. “Swannanoa Tunnel” is a song written by wrongfully imprisoned Black men and women, who unwillingly risked their lives building the Swannanoa Tunnel in Giddens’s home state of North Carolina. It serves as a tribute to them, ending with a version of the popular traditional tune “Steel-Driving Man” about the folk hero John Henry, who beat the steam drill with his hammer, only to die of a burst heart.
Salvant’s first-ever Silkroad commission, “Have You Seen My Man?,” tells the imagined story of a woman walking slowly along a train track, joined by generations of wanderers who cannot ride the train though it was built by their labors. For Kite’s work, titled “Wíha?blapi Mázacha?ku,” she created a graphic score using the Lakota written language based on dreams from members of the Silkroad Ensemble. Wu Man’s “Rainy Day” combines her instrument, the pipa, with the banjo and voice to reflect the emotions of Chinese wives and mothers who miss their husbands and sons working on the railroad across the Pacific Ocean. Fujii’s “Tamping Song” celebrates the Japanese immigrant contribution to the railroad, particularly after the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882; while Gilchrist’s “Far Down Far” shines light on the tensions between Catholic and Protestant communities within Irish railroad workers. Swift’s take on the spiritual, “O Shout!,” reminds us of the way in which enslaved people in the U.S. were able to communicate complex messages of hope, devotion, freedom, and insurrection—through music.
To shed even more light on the untold stories of the Transcontinental Railroad, Silkroad is partnering with Peabody Award-winning public media organization PRX for a five-episode podcast series hosted by Rhiannon Giddens. Episodes will be released beginning November 14, free on-demand across all major podcast platforms, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Pocket Casts, Overcast, and NPR One.
The American Railroad podcast will weave together music and story, centering different regions of the country while delving into ties to the railroad and how they resonate today. Guests will include historians, musicians, descendants of railroad workers, members of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, and Silkroad artists. From Chinese laborers’ crucial role in California’s railroad to the tragic tale of convict laborers in North Carolina, the series will help paint a more accurate and inclusive picture of America’s railroad history.
In conjunction with the album and podcast releases, Silkroad also embarks on the second leg of its American Railroad national tour from November 7-23, visiting 10 cities in the Midwestern, Southern, and Eastern United States with railroad-related cultural history. Physical copies of the American Railroad album will be available at all tour stops; see the full tour information below.
AMERICAN RAILROAD ALBUM INFORMATION
Listen to the first single, “Swannanoa Tunnel / Steel Driving Man,” featuring Rhiannon Giddens on vocals: silkroadensemble.lnk.to/americanrailroad
Watch a live performance from the Fall 2023 tour of American Railroad:
youtube.com/watch?v=y6bcjGFg9mA&t=1s
Pre-order the album ahead of the November 15 release:
silkroadensemble.lnk.to/americanrailroad
Track Listing:
- “Invocation” - Pura Fé Crescioni
- “Swannanoa Tunnel / Steel-Driving Man” - Traditional, arr. Rhiannon Giddens
- “Rainy Day” - Wu Man
- “Far Down Far” - Maeve Gilchrist
- “Tamping Song” - Haruka Fujii
- “Rela” - Sandeep Das
- “Wíha?blapi Mázacha?ku” - Suzanne Kite
- “Have You Seen My Man?” - Cécile McLorin Salvant
- “Swannanoa Strings” - Traditional, arr. Silkroad Ensemble
- “Milimo” - Niwel Tsumbu
- “Fukagu Sanjurokkei” - Kaoru Watanabe
- “Mahk Jchi” - Pura Fé Crescioni
- “O Shout!” - Mazz Swift
Featuring:
Rhiannon Giddens, banjo/voice
Shawn Conley, bass
Pura Fé Crescioni, lap-steel guitar/voice
Haruka Fujii, percussion
Sandeep Das, tabla
Karen Ouzounian, cello
Mazz Swift, violin/voice
Niwel Tsumbu, guitar
Francesco Turrisi, frame drums/accordion
Kaoru Watanabe, Japanese flutes and percussion
Michi Wiancko, violin
Wu Man, pipa
Yazhi Guo, suona/Chinese percussion
Production Credits:
American Railroad was recorded live at Green Music Center in Sonoma, CA and Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley, CA on November 17 and 18, 2023. Rhiannon Giddens, Kaoru Watanabe, and Jody Elff are co-producers. Jody Elff is the recording and mixing engineer.
AMERICAN RAILROAD PODCAST FROM SILKROAD AND PRX INFORMATION:
Listen to the teaser and subscribe ahead of the November 14 launch:
silkroad.org/american-railroad-podcast
Episodes will traverse the following areas:
North Carolina
The first stop on the American Railroad podcast is Swannanoa, North Carolina. Host and Silkroad Artistic Director Rhiannon Giddens reveals the origins of the popular Appalachian folk song “Swannanoa Tunnel” and how professors Jeffrey A. Keith and Kevin Kehrberg’s research sparked important conversations about erasure and ownership in Appalachian music. We’ll also hear from banjo player Tray Wellington about his experience as a Black band leader making a way in a genre not well known for performers who look like him.
New York
Next: Hell’s Kitchen, a New York City neighborhood historian Miriam Nyhan describes as transformed by immigration and expansion of the state’s railroad boom. Despite tensions between Black and Irish railroad workers, living and laboring side-by-side created a distinctly American sound. Musicians Lenwood “Leni” Sloan and Silkroad Ensemble member Maeve Gilchrist use music to capture the energy and urgency of the time in their workshop with New York’s Irish Arts Center.
California
Historians Karen Ishizuka and Roland Hsu detail the contributions of Japanese and Chinese railroad laborers in a country that leveraged xenophobic laws in attempts to eradicate their cultural heritages. Haruka Fujii, Associate Artistic Director of the Silkroad Ensemble, walks us through “Tamping Song”—an ode to “Tamping Ondo,” a Japanese work song that captures the spirit of laborers dedicated to the rail.
Standing Rock
Centuries before the Dakota Access Pipeline snaked underneath Lakota-Sioux land, the Transcontinental Railroad barreled through it. Standing Rock Sioux Reservation leaders Dave Archambault Sr. and Dave Archambault II discuss how the economic and social expansion of America often comes at the expense of Indigenous people. We’ll also hear from Silkroad Ensemble member Pura Fé about her time in Standing Rock for the #NoDAPL occupation and Ethnomusicologist Everardo “Ever” Reyes’s take on how songs, like Fé’s “Mahk Jchi,” are part of a long tradition of Indigenous protest music.
Boston
At the turn of the 20th century, Black men and women worked as Pullman porters and maids—serving predominantly white travelers while reinforcing a hierarchy reminiscent of the Antebellum South. Wives, sisters, and daughters largely made up the Ladies' Auxiliary of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters—and served as their mouthpiece—keeping the economic, social, domestic, and political interests of railroad workers at the center of their activism. Musician and Silkroad collaborator Cécile McLorin Salvant’s song, “Have You Seen My Man?,” gives voice to the legions of Black women who awaited the safe return of their loved ones aboard the trains, while they took care of home in communities like Boston’s South End neighborhood.
Further information regarding the podcast will be announced at a later date.
AMERICAN RAILROAD TOUR DATES
November 7, 2024
Harris Theater
Chicago, IL
Tickets
November 8, 2024
Presented by University Musical Society
Hill Auditorium
Ann Arbor, MI
Tickets
November 10, 2024
Schermerhorn Symphony Center
Nashville, TN
Tickets
November 12, 2024
Presented by City of Rogers Parks and Recreation
Rogers Convention Center
Rogers, AR
Tickets
November 14, 2024
Peace Center
Peace Concert Hall
Greenville, SC
Tickets
November 16, 2024
Schwartz Center for Performing Arts at Emory University
Atlanta, GA
More Information (Sold Out)
November 17, 2024
University of Georgia Performing Arts Center
Athens, GA
Tickets
November 19, 2024
Charleston Gaillard Center
Charleston, SC
Tickets
November 20, 2024
Carolina Performing Arts
Chapel Hill, NC
Tickets
November 23, 2024
Part of Next Wave 2024
Brooklyn Academy of Music
BAM Howard Gilman Opera House
Brooklyn, NY
Tickets
Acknowledgements & Funding Credits
Support for American Railroad is provided, in part, by the Alice L. Walton Foundation, Barr Foundation, California State Railroad Museum Foundation, FreshGrass Foundation, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP, GRoW @ Annenberg, LaVon Kellner and Tom Roush, Diann Kim and John Frank, Mellon Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, New Music USA, Pershing Square Foundation, Playbill, Lori and Ted Samuels, Wagner Family Foundation, Whitehead Foundation, along with many other generous donors to Silkroad.
American Railroad was created, in part, with support from the Center for the Arts at George Mason University through the Mason Artist-in-Residence program.
Special thanks to the many communities across America whose culture bearers have worked with the artists of Silkroad to relay history and share stories and artistry integral to the creation of the music for the American Railroad tour and the overall initiative.
About Silkroad’s American Railroad Initiative
After completion of the Transcontinental Railroad, a trip from coast to coast that used to take months was shortened to just under a week, allowing for the transport of goods and ideas across the continent. Profit-seeking corporations and the American government financed it, but the people who actually built it—Indigenous and African Americans as well Irish, Chinese, Japanese, and other immigrant laborers—are the focus of Silkroad’s American Railroad. The ambitious project highlights untold stories and amplifies unheard voices from these communities, addressing past injustices and providing a more truthful account of global diasporic contributions to the creation of the American Empire. This in-depth exploration began in 2020 with artist retreats and site visits throughout the nation, as well as the creation of new compositions and a broad range of educational resources and community-building activities.
Audiences wishing to gain a deeper understanding of the historical context, the origins of the music being performed, and the partnerships formed through the project, can do so by accessing the American Railroad booklet available on Silkroad’s website. Developed in 2023, this educational resource has been viewed by more than 10,000 people around the world.
About Silkroad
Yo-Yo Ma conceived Silkroad in 1998, recognizing the historical Silk Road as a model for cultural collaboration—for the exchange of ideas, tradition, and innovation across borders. In a groundbreaking experiment, he brought together musicians from the lands of the Silk Road to co-create a musical language founded in difference, thus creating the foundation of Silkroad: both a touring ensemble comprised of world-class musicians from all over the globe and a Boston-based non-profit organization working to make a positive impact across borders through the arts.
Today, under the leadership of Artistic Director Rhiannon Giddens and Executive Director Ben Hartley, Silkroad leads social impact initiatives and educational programming alongside the creation of new music by the Grammy Award-winning Silkroad Ensemble.
To learn more, please visit silkroad.org and @silkroadproject on social media.
About Rhiannon Giddens
Rhiannon Giddens has made a singular, iconic career out of stretching her brand of folk music, with its miles-deep historical roots and contemporary sensibilities, into just about every field imaginable. A two-time Grammy Award- and Pulitzer Prize-winner, MacArthur “Genius” grant recipient, singer and instrumentalist, and composer of opera, ballet, and film, Giddens has centered her work around the mission of lifting up people whose contributions to American musical history have previously been overlooked or erased, and advocating for a more accurate understanding of the country’s musical origins through art.
As Pitchfork once said, “few artists are so fearless and so ravenous in their exploration”—a journey that has led to NPR naming her one of its 25 Most Influential Women Musicians of the 21st Century and to American Songwriter calling her “one of the most important musical minds currently walking the planet.”
About Nonesuch Records
Founded in 1964, Nonesuch Records has since grown to pursue a broad mission, dedicated to contemporary composers, jazz, American roots music, alternative music, world music, classical music, and soundtracks and music theater. In a business filled with constant change, its leadership has been remarkably stable: three people—the late Tracey Sterne, Bob Hurwitz, and most recently David Bither—have been at the helm for most of the label’s sixty years, and the label’s releases have reflected the distinctive visions of each. Though the Nonesuch artist roster has changed dramatically since its early years, the label has retained its most important characteristics during its history: recording music of originality and innovation, regardless of genre. Nonesuch artists have won Pulitzer Prizes, MacArthur “Genius” Fellowships, and other awards, including Grammys in categories ranging from Alternative to Classical to Jazz to Folk to World Music to Rock and beyond.
About PRX
Celebrating more than 20 years as a nonprofit public media company, PRX works in partnership with leading independent creators, organizations, and stations to bring meaningful audio storytelling into millions of listeners’ lives. PRX is one of the world’s top podcast publishers, public radio distributors, and audio producers, serving as an engine of innovation for public media and podcasting to help shape a vibrant future for creative and journalistic audio. Shows across PRX’s portfolio of broadcast productions, podcast partners, and its Radiotopia podcast network have received recognition from the Peabody Awards, the Tribeca Festival, the International Documentary Association, the National Magazine Awards, and the Pulitzer Prizes.
Visit PRX.org for more.
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