In the past 18 months, every opportunity presented to Rhiannon Giddens has elicited a new, more exciting challenge for her to conquer.
She turned heads at a star-studded folk revival concert in New York City and played in a supergroup that endeavored to complete and perform songs created from rediscovered Bob Dylan lyrics. All that was before recording her first solo album.
But the musical focus for the co-founding member of the old-time devotees Carolina Chocolate Drops remains the same. Whether reviving an anthem popularized by Nina Simone or uncovering a traditional minstrel song, Giddens' process starts with passion.
"We like shining a light on music that's underappreciated or not well known, but it has to start out with music I love," Giddens said. "It starts out with me saying 'I love this tune' and goes from there."
Giddens' plunge into roots music, especially African-American traditions, started after she graduated from Oberlin Conservatory in Ohio in 2000.
At Oberlin she studied opera, but after returning to her home in North Carolina, she became interested in Contra dancing and playing the banjo.
"I loved the sound of the clawhammer banjo," she said. "I also loved the idea of playing an instrument. I'd always just been a singer. That just kind of engaged my brain. Once you go down that rabbit hole, there's a lot to listen to and discover."
Giddens has made multiple trips to Alaska with the Chocolate Drops, playing in Juneau at the Alaska Folk Festival as early as 2007.
She wasn't exactly an unknown in September 2013 when she took the stage at Town Hall in New York City for the "Another Day, Another Time," concert, a companion for the Coen brothers' film "Inside Llewyn Davis."
The Carolina Chocolate Drops had carved out a seven-year career punctuated by a Grammy win in 2010 for their album "Genuine Negro Jig" in the best traditional folk category.
But Giddens showed the audience a potency and range she hadn't revealed in performing much of the Chocolate Drops' old-time repertoire.
The New York Times' review of the show singled out Giddens from a marquee of names that included Elvis Costello, Jack White and the Avett Brothers: "The concert's real head turner was Rhiannon Giddens from the Carolina Chocolate Drops. She turned to the folk revival repertory of Odetta for the enigmatic "Water Boy," singing it with the fervor of a spiritual, the yips of a field holler and the sultry insinuation of the blues."
"It was a coming out party for me as a solo artist," Giddens said. "I didn't have a profile as a solo artist. It became the night as far as the public knowing who I was."
T-Bone Burnett produced the concert, and in 2014 recruited Giddens and many of the performers from "Another Day, Another Time," to form The New Basement Tapes.
The band, composed of Giddens, Costello, Jim James (My Morning Jacket), Marcus Mumford (Mumford & Sons) and Taylor Goldsmith (Dawes) recorded "Lost on the River: The New Basement Tapes."
The band completed and recorded songs using an uncovered cache of lyrics Dylan wrote during preparations for his Basement Tapes sessions in 1967, recorded with the musicians who would eventually form The Band.
Again, Giddens' contributions to the project shine.
Giddens channels a Caribbean soothsayer in narrating the ballad "Spanish Mary." Giddens kicks off the song on banjo, sketching a foreboding portrait of three sailors searching for Spanish Mary, asking "Beggar man, beggar man, tell me no lie / is it a mystery to live, or is it a mystery to die?"
Giddens felt like a bit of a fish out of water in the project, but said the gains outweighed the pains.
"It was a very hard thing to do," she said. "I was out of my element. I learned a lot. It was really hard, but a lot of the time when something is really hard you're going to get something good out of it."
Giddens continued to work with Burnett for her solo album, "Tomorrow is My Turn," released earlier this year.
For the album, Giddens covered a wide swath of styles, choosing songs previously recorded in the country, blues, jazz, folk and gospel genres.
"Everything I've done with him has been great," she said of her work with Burnett. "It's just been a really great partnership. I'm grateful for that."
Just two weeks ago, Giddens was a guest at the White House, where she performed for a celebration of gospel music dubbed "Where Their Dreams Took Flight."
"It was incredible," she said. "That was definitely a highlight."
Rhiannon Giddens
When: 7:30 Sunday, May 3
Where: Discovery Theatre in Anchorage
Tickets: $35 at alaskapac.centertix.net
When: 7:30 p.m. Monday, May 4
Where: Glenn Massay Theater in Palmer
Tickets: $35 at alaskapac.centertix.net