American Railroad (2024)

"The collective and their artistic director’s classy multimedia project highlights the lives lost and land snatched away in building the US transcontinental railroad. Giddens has championed the marginalised or suppressed elements of American musical tradition. Now artistic director of the Silkroad Ensemble, a multi-ethnic, 13-strong troupe founded in 2000, Giddens has overseen a history of America’s coast-to-coast railroad, or more particularly the army of workers who built it. Most were Irish, African American, Chinese and Japanese, while Native Americans found their lands snatched away. Giddens, with her opera-trained voice, grabs the glory with renditions of Swannanoa Tunnel, an Appalachian ballad about a route that cost an estimated 300 lives, and Steel-Driving Man, about the fabled John Henry. The record is, however, mostly instrumental, drawing on a well-manicured mix of cellos, banjos and ethnic instruments." (The Guardian; 4 uit 5 sterren)