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Free Day of Music, Storytelling, and Workshops at The Fruit Set for April 26, Followed by a Star-Studded DPAC Performance on April 27
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Follows Successful Silkroad Sanctuary Community Engagements and Precedes Upcoming “American Tunes” Summer Tour and New Book Release
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[Photo Credit: Karen Cox]
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March 25, 2026 // Rhiannon Giddens has announced free programming for the one-year anniversary of Biscuits & Banjos in Durham, NC, anchored by a full day of community events on Sunday, April 26, 2026 at The Fruit. The anniversary weekend will culminate on April 27 with Biscuits & Banjos Presents: Rhiannon Giddens’ Beloved Community at DPAC, featuring Giddens and her band with special guests Mavis Staples, Blind Boys of Alabama, Rissi Palmer, and Toshi Reagon.
The newly announced April 26 programming reflects the spirit at the heart of Biscuits & Banjos: a celebration of music, memory, community, scholarship, and cultural exchange. Taking place primarily at The Fruit, the day will feature conversations, performances, readings, dancing, and literary programming designed to bring artists, audiences, and Durham community members together in a shared space of reflection and joy. RSVP is required for all free events at The Fruit. Among the day’s highlights are Color Me Country x Beloved Community: A songversation between Rissi Palmer and Kamara Thomas; a conversation and performance featuring Toshi Reagon, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, and Destiny Hemphill; Rhiannon Giddens and Kristina R. Gaddy in conversation around their book Go Back and Fetch It; a celebration of 50 years of Edna Lewis’ The Taste of Country Cooking, with Michael Carter Jr., an activist around African American contributions to Southern agriculture; a Dip Family Reunion event with North Carolina chef and author Spring Council; a Durham County Public Library Bookmobile with specially curated books for checkout; and an Evening Frolic, a line and square dance with music from Jake Blount, Justin Robinson, Rhiannon Giddens, Jason Sypher, and Demeanor, with calling by Phil Jamison and line dance song selection by Malinda D. Evans.
The release follows a series of recent free community engagements tied to Giddens’ Silkroad Ensemble tour, Sanctuary: The Power of Resonance and Ritual, which brought meals, dances, and communal gatherings to cities including Bowling Green, Chicago, Oakland, and Fairfax. It also arrives ahead of a busy season for Giddens that includes the May 5 release of her new book, Color Me Country: A Celebration of Black Women Who Shaped Country Music, as well as her upcoming spring/summer tour that includes American Tunes: Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing, a special concert presentation featuring Mavis Staples, Mary Chapin Carpenter, and Hurray for the Riff Raff. See below for the full itinerary.
The 2025 Biscuits & Banjos festival was a sold-out, multi-venue celebration of Black music, art, food, and culture that drew widespread acclaim in Durham and beyond. Created to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the landmark Black Banjo Gathering that helped launch Giddens’ career and led to the formation of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, the inaugural edition featured more than 20 performances, free community programming, workshops, readings, banjo lessons, and the Biscuit Trail, which spotlighted Durham’s culinary scene. Its centerpiece — the Carolina Chocolate Drops’ first reunion performance in over a decade — became a defining moment of the weekend, while coverage from The New York Times underscored the festival’s larger cultural impact, highlighting its cross-generational lineup, joyful atmosphere, and vision of “cultural renaissance” rooted in Black creativity, community, and tradition. With the upcoming April 26 free programming and April 27 DPAC concert, “Beloved Community” extends Giddens’ long-running commitment to creating spaces where roots music, cultural memory, and collective experience can meet. For more information please visit: https://www.biscuitsandbanjos.com/community-programming
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Biscuits & Banjos “Beloved Community” Schedule — Sunday, April 26, 2026
The Fruit | 305 S Dillard St, Durham, NC 27701
RSVP required for all events at The Fruit: https://app.opendate.io/e/rhiannon-giddens-biscuits-banjos-presents-a-day-of-free-programming-april-26-2026-655893
10:30 AM
Color Me Country x Beloved Community: A songversation between Rissi Palmer and Kamara Thomas
Join Durham-based songspeller, ritualist, multidisciplinary storyteller, and creator of Country Soul Songbook Kamara Thomas and Rissi Palmer for a conversation and acoustic performance exploring motherhood, music, artistic pivots, advocacy, and building community within musical spaces. Between discussion, Kamara will perform selections from her catalog.
12:00 PM
Dip Family Reunion event with chef and author Spring Council
Curated by BEM | books and more
1:30 PM
Toshi Reagon, Alexis Pauline Gumbs and Destiny Hemphill in conversation and performance
1:30–5:30 PM
Bookmobile
Courtesy of Durham County Public Library
Books specially curated for checkout by Biscuits & Banjos and BEM | books and more, plus kids coloring sheets of Black country trailblazers.
3:00 PM
Kristina Gaddy x Rhiannon Giddens: Go Back and Fetch It - A Book Talk and Signing
Join groundbreaking banjo scholar Kristina Gaddy and Pulitzer prize winner Rhiannon Giddens as they talk about their book Go Back and Fetch It: Recovering Early Black Music in the Americas for Fiddle and Banjo (UNC Press 2025). Books will be available for purchase and signing.
For the first time, this groundbreaking songbook collaboration by Gaddy and Giddens makes nineteen examples of early Black Atlantic music accessible and playable for today’s musicians, music enthusiasts, and historians. Presenting music from 1687 through the 1860s in modern treble clef and banjo tablature, along with the rich stories behind each song, Gaddy and Giddens take readers on a journey from the Caribbean across the Americas.
Immensely readable for amateurs and professionals alike, Go Back and Fetch It explains the significance of early Black Atlantic music and how the patterns of tunings, melodic lines, and lyrics shed light on the impact that Black American music has had on nineteenth-century popular music, early country, old time, and bluegrass. Each tune pairs with an engaging essay on its historical background and how the tune transformed over time, as well as information about the collector. Deeply researched and carefully approached, this essential source restores the roots of Black music to the musical canon.
4:30 PM
50 Years of The Taste of Country Cooking by Edna Lewis
Curated by BEM | books and more
8:00–10:00 PM
Evening Frolic: a line and square dance
Music from Jake Blount, Justin Robinson, Rhiannon Giddens, Jason Sypher, and Demeanor
Calling by Phil Jamison
Line dance song selection by Malinda D. Evans
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Upcoming Rhiannon Giddens Dates
Mar 26 – Rochester, NY – Kodak Hall at Eastman Theatre *
Mar 27 – Brookville, NY – Tilles Center Concert Hall *
Mar 28 – Princeton, NJ – McCarter Theatre Center *
Apr 16 – Boston, MA – Orpheum Theatre
Apr 17 – Baltimore, MD – Baltimore Old Time Festival (Discussion with Kristina R. Gaddy)
Apr 18 – Boone, NC – Schaefer Center for the Performing Arts
Apr 19 – Louisville, KY – Old Forester’s Paristown Hall
Apr 21 – Ann Arbor, MI – Hill Auditorium
Apr 22 – Urbana, IL – Krannert Center for the Performing Arts
Apr 24 – Lafayette, LA – Festival International de Louisiane
Apr 25 – New Orleans, LA – New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival
Apr 27 – Durham, NC – DPAC (Biscuits & Banjos Presents: Rhiannon Giddens’ Beloved Community)
Apr 28 – Athens, GA – Hodgson Concert Hall
May 01 – Houston, TX – Jones Hall for the Performing Arts
May 02 – Austin, TX – Bass Concert Hall
May 03 – Dallas, TX – Longhorn Ballroom
May 05 – Philadelphia, PA – Miller Theater
May 08 – New York, NY – Carnegie Hall
May 27 – London, England – Wigmore Hall (with Francesco Turrisi & Crash Ensemble)
July 18 – Oak Hill, NY – Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival
July 25 – Lyons, CO – Rocky Grass
Aug 20 – Lenox, MA – Seiji Ozawa Hall, Tanglewood *
Aug 22 – Chautauqua, NY – Chautauqua Institution *
Nov 01 – Minneapolis, MN – Walker Art Center (Mack Lecture Series)
Nov 14 – New York, NY – Carnegie Hall (with Silkroad Ensemble & Yo-Yo Ma)
* Performance with Silkroad Ensemble — Sanctuary: The Power of Resonance and Ritual
American Tunes: Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing Tour
June 26 - Seattle, WA - Chateau St. Michelle (with Mary Chapin Carpenter and Hurray for the Riff Raff)
June 27 - Bend, OR - Hayden Homes Amphitheater (with Mavis Staples, Mary Chapin Carpenter and Hurray for the Riff Raff)
July 30 - Bentonville, AR - The Momentary (with Mavis Staples, Mary Chapin Carpenter and Hurray for the Riff Raff)
Aug. 1 - Asheville, NC - Hellbender by The Orange Peel (with Mavis Staples, Mary Chapin Carpenter and Hurray for the Riff Raff)
Aug. 2 - Pelham, TN - The Caverns Outdoor Amphitheater (with Mavis Staples, Mary Chapin Carpenter and Hurray for the Riff Raff)
