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Tanger Center Books Greensboro Opera Performance With Rhiannon Giddens

Rhiannon Giddens performs during rehearsal for the Boston Pops Fireworks Spectacular in Boston, Tuesday, July 3, 2018. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer)

Greensboro's Steven Tanger Center for the Performing Arts isn't scheduled to open for another year and a half. But the venue has lined up a local favorite for its first booking.

Rhiannon Giddens will star in Greensboro Opera's presentation of Porgy and Bess, scheduled for November 2020.

The Greensboro native and Grammy-winning musician will star as Bess in George Gershwin's classic folk-opera.

While this won't be the first event at the Tanger Center, it is the first official booking for the performance venue, which is currently under construction.

The 3,000-seat performing arts center will be located in downtown Greensboro and will be managed by the staff of the Greensboro Coliseum Complex.

Giddens, who recently received a MacArthur “genius” grant, is a classically trained singer who attended University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

She was recently back in town to perform and guest-curate the inaugural N.C. Folk Festival.

Neal Charnoff joined 88.5 WFDD as Morning Edition host in 2014. Raised in the Catskill region of upstate New York, he graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in 1983. Armed with a liberal arts degree, Neal was fully equipped to be a waiter. So he prolonged his arrested development bouncing around New York and L.A. until discovering that people enjoyed listening to his voice on the radio. After a few years doing overnight shifts at a local rock station, Neal spent most of his career at Vermont Public Radio. He began as host of a nightly jazz program, where he was proud to interview many of his idols, including Dave Brubeck and Sonny Rollins. Neal graduated to the news department, where he was the local host for NPR's All Things Considered for 14 years. In addition to news interviews and features, he originated and produced the Weekly Conversation On The Arts, as well as VPR Backstage, which profiled theater productions around the state. He contributed several stories to NPR, including coverage of a devastating ice storm. Neal now sees the value of that liberal arts degree, and approaches life with the knowledge that all subjects and all art forms are connected to each other. Neal and his wife Judy are enjoying exploring North Carolina and points south. They would both be happy to never experience a Vermont winter again.

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