The Tiny Desk is working from home for the foreseeable future. Introducing NPR Music’s Tiny Desk (home) concerts, bringing you performances from across the country and the world. It’s the same spirit — stripped-down sets, an intimate setting — just a different space.

“We’re not doing my original songs,” Rhiannon Giddens says, before she and her partner, Francesco Turrisi, launch into an old spiritual, “’cause with these kinds of emotions, the old songs say it best.”

Though acknowledging their good fortune — a place to live, a bit of savings, their children being safe — Rhiannon Giddens also pauses to tell us how the pandemic has altered their entire way of life. They canceled their tour of Japan and returned home to Ireland; Rhiannon lives in Limerick while Francesco lives a few hours away in Dublin where they recorded this Tiny Desk (home) concert. They’re finding comfort in being together, making music together, thinking of their families in both Italy and the United States, and hoping to comfort us all with some down-home tunes. And with banjos, fiddles, a bodhrán, and that stunning voice, it sure worked for me!

SET LIST

• “Black As Crow”
• “Spiritual”
• “Carolina Gals”
• “Last Chance”

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