Artist Highlight: Aoife O’Donovan performing at FreshGrass | Bentonville
If you plan on coming to FreshGrass|Bentonville, you won’t want to miss Aoife O’Donovan on Friday, May 17! A GRAMMY Award-winning singer and songwriter, Aoife O’Donovan transcends genre, compiling elements of folk, bluegrass, and indie rock to create a distinctive sound marked by her captivating vocals.
Alongside her three critically acclaimed solo albums, O’Donovan has gained widespread recognition as a founding member of the progressive folk band Crooked Still and the folk trio I’m With Her. She is also the featured vocalist on The Goat Rodeo Sessions with Yo-Yo Ma, Stuart Duncan, Edgar Meyer, and Chris Thile, and she has spent a decade contributing to the radio variety show Live from Here, formerly known as A Prairie Home Companion.
O’Donovan’s latest record All My Friends came together as a tribute to the US Constitution’s 19th Amendment, but the artist didn’t originally set out to make a political record.
“It was not that I was sitting there one day and was like, ‘You know, I really want to write a record about suffrage and about women’s rights,’” O’Donovan told No Depression, the FreshGrass Foundation’s publication.
With the help of two major commissions, the first from the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra and the second from the FreshGrass Foundation, O’Donovan was given the opportunity to explore the topic with no limitations.
“I took it as a challenge. As an artist, as a songwriter, I’m up for doing things outside of my comfort zone. It’s one of the things that I’ve been so lucky to do so much of in my career—not just do the same thing over and over again,” O’Donovan told No Depression.
“I took it as a challenge. As an artist, as a songwriter, I’m up for doing things outside of my comfort zone. It’s one of the things that I’ve been so lucky to do so much of in my career—not just do the same thing over and over again,”
O’Donovan believes that commissions impact working artists. She feels that commissions today should be used to support art that influences public perception—“to move people, to move the needle, to make people think.”
Commissioned specially for FreshGrass|Bentonville, O’Donovan will be joined by Hawktail and the University of Arkansas Children’s Choir in performing “America, Come,” one of the nine tracks from All My Friends. Inspired by the lives, letters, and speeches of the President of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, Carrie Chapman Catt, and United States President Woodrow Wilson during the summer of 1920, O’Donovan explores more than a century of women’s suffrage with her thoughtful composition and powerful storytelling.
Hawktail, the quartet made up of fiddler Brittany Haas, bassist Paul Kowert, guitarist Jordan Tice, and mandolinist Dominick Leslie, will accompany O’Donovan in her commission set featuring the University of Arkansas Children’s Choir to create an unforgettable experience for festivalgoers.
Join the artists for FreshGrass on May 17 and 18 for a weekend filled with today’s best bluegrass and progressive roots artists. The full lineup includes impressive names like Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, Trampled by Turtles, Valerie June, and more.
Alongside Aoife O’Donovan, other FreshGrass special commissions include a performance by Eric Mingus & the Sacred Routes Vocal Ensemble and a reinterpretation of Duke Ellington’s Nutcracker Suite performed by Mr. Sun. Learn more about the artists on this year’s lineup here. Click here to buy your FreshGrass|Bentonville tickets.