Congratulations to Rhiannon Giddens, who received an honorary Doctor of Music degree from Princeton University at the commencement ceremony at the Princeton Stadium in New Jersey this morning.

“Named by NPR as one of the 25 Most Influential Women Musicians of the 21st Century, she has dedicated her career to raising up voices that have been overlooked or erased,” says the school. “Discovering the history of African American string bands as a young musician changed the trajectory of her career—as she devoted herself to introducing new audiences to the Black banjoists and fiddlers whose influences have been left out of the historical narratives surrounding folk and country music. As a singer and multi-instrumentalist, her achievements are as diverse as the musical styles she performs. A two-time Grammy Award winner, she is also a Pulitzer Prize recipient and a MacArthur ‘Genius.’ Her roles include artistic director, composer of opera, ballet, and film, children’s book author, and television host and actress. Few contemporary artists have done more to connect overlooked musical traditions of America’s past with music being performed today.”

The 2023 honorary degree recipients, pictured here with Princeton University President Christopher L. Eisgruber (center), are biochemist Katalin Karikó, whose work was the cornerstone for the development of the COVID-19 vaccine; Giddens; Native American advocate and activist Suzan Shown Harjo; microelectronics chip design innovator Lynn Conway; and Latin American cultural and intellectual history expert Arcadio Díaz-Quiñones.

For more on the honorees, visit princeton.edu.