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Stories   >   Rhiannon Gidden's first Silk Road concert as AD eased the loss of the last two years / 90.9WBUR

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Rhiannon Gidden's first Silk Road concert as AD eased the loss of the last two years / 90.9WBUR

Posted: December 14, 2021
WBUR's Anri Wheeler writes....Since the start of the pandemic, I have let subscriptions to the A.R.T., Celebrity Series, and Broadway in Boston go unrenewed. As much as I have missed shows and readings and concerts, they have not seemed worth the risk.
 
When I walked by the A.R.T. and saw Rhiannon Gidden's photo looking out at me from an enormous orange poster, my body instinctively paused before one of the large panes of glass at the theater's entrance. I am a huge Giddens fan. She's got a voice that vibrates from a place deep inside her soul; her lyrics and storytelling, her banjo playing - she pierces me in ways few other musicians can. Her song "Julie" is one I revisit often, ever since it was first played for me during a weekend retreat I did with other antiracist educators.
 
The performance at the A.R.T. was to be Gidden's first with the Silk Road Ensemble since taking over as their artistic director. I'd seen the ensemble live with its founder, the cellist Yo-Yo Ma, at Carnegie Hall over a decade ago. I remember how it felt to watch the musicians layer their notes together in conversation. I experienced instruments new to me - as though I'd been listening to them my entire life - communicating something overwhelming and universal, yet seemingly just for me.    
 
I bought myself a ticket to the A.R.T. show at the last minute. It felt impulsive. I worried I was taking an unnecessary risk, and for what? But as I listened to Giddens sing during the opening number - dressed in a gorgeous, full-length red skirt and long earrings adorned with feathers that brushed against her shoulders - I had my answer. Goosebumps rose on my arms. Tears flowed freely down my double-masked face, as her voice channeled the collective pain we have all been carrying.
 
I felt two years' worth of loss and exhaustion leave my body, as I sat in a theater for the first time in just as long. Something that used to feel so routine, was once again novel, and I did not take a minute for granted. 
 
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