Posted on 7th Feb 2018
Grammy award-winning vocalist, songwriter and clawhammer banjo player Abigail Washburn has been selected as the third-ever Andrew W. Mellon Foundation DisTil Fellow at Carolina Performing Arts.
Washburn has already begun a series of “exploratory” visits to Chapel Hill, where she is meeting with UNC faculty and other potential collaborators to develop a working set of inquiries and areas of interest that will ultimately launch her full-scale projects as a DisTIL Fellow. A fluent speaker of Mandarin with profound connections to communities and traditions both global and local, she is known for creating inventive cross-cultural takes on folk and old-time music.
Ms. Washburn is certain to bring an engaging, eye-opening presence to her work with Carolina Performing Arts and the community on campus and beyond. Praised by The New Yorker, NPR, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and other media outlets, Washburn is a prolific musician whose work mingles Appalachian and Chinese folk music, speaking to the importance of cultural understanding and the power of communal experiences rooted in traditions of sound.