American Songbook: Singer Outsiders is a new series at Lincoln Center that “uplifts women and nonbinary musicians who have shaped the modern landscape of music and continue to drive conversations on gender, identity, and empowerment.” It was curated by Kathleen Hanna and Tamar-kali, and runs February 11–April 15, 2025.
The series includes a number of free special tribute shows honoring late X-Ray Spex singer Poly Styrene (March 28 @ David Rubenstein Atrium), The Slits (April 4 @ David Rubenstein Atrium), and ESG and Gossip teaming up to honor ’70s rock band Fanny (April 6 @ Wu Tsai Theater, David Geffen Hall). Those shows will all feature special guest performers TBA.
There’s also an event called Mixtape: Women in Punk (April 11, 2025 @ David Rubenstein Atrium), which is billed as a night “inspired by the rich history of women and nonbinary artists in punk rock, including vanguard creators like Siouxsie Sioux, Patti Smith, Debbie Harry, The Raincoats, X-Ray Spex, The Slits, Kathleen Hanna, Laura Jane Grace, Beth Ditto, and many more.”
There are also concerts featuring Joan as Police Woman (March 22 @ The Appel Room), Meshell Ndegeocello (March 23 @ The Appel Room), Ana Tijoux (April 15 @ Wu Tsai Theater) and more.
Check out the full American Songbook: Singer Outsiders lineup below and head to Lincoln Center’s website for more info.
American Songbook: Singer Outsiders
Tuesday February 11, 2025 @ Alice Tully Hall: History’s Persistent Voice
History’s Persistent Voice is a multimedia ethnographic anthology envisioned by curator and GRAMMY Award-winning singer Julia Bullock. The program’s focus is on the influence of pre-Emancipation voices across generations, emphasizing that era’s poetic musical traditions while centering the multifaceted identities of the Black American experience, realized through art. These works are given new life through Bullock’s powerhouse vocal renditions, far-ranging connective research, and a quintet of newly commissioned compositions crafted by an esteemed roster of American women of color that features Jessie Montgomery, Tania León, Allison Loggins-Hull, Carolyn Yarnell, and Pamela Z. Additional collaborators include the fellow GRAMMY Award-winning conductor Christian Reif and the Tony Award-winning designer and immersive visual artist Hana S. Kim. Previously seen at The Met Museum and the San Francisco Symphony, this evening represents the ever-evolving presentation’s Lincoln Center debut.
Friday March 21, 2025 @ The Appel Room: Shaina Taub
Since her 2015 Lincoln Center American Songbook debut, the outstanding GRAMMY-nominated singer/songwriter Shaina Taub has produced three original albums, original scores, and lyrics for two musical Shakespeare adaptations, and the multiple Tony Award-winning Broadway hit Suffs, establishing herself as a powerful voice in the pop and theater worlds. Taub has also turned in bravura performances for numerous Off-Broadway hits—Old Hats; Natasha, Pierre and The Great Comet; Hadestown; Ragtime—but she’s perhaps most in her natural element singing behind a piano, as evidenced by a sold-out series of residency shows at Joe’s Pub. Taub was recently named one of Time Magazine’s 2024 TIME100 Next, placing her among the nation’s creative leaders. Taub returns to Lincoln Center’s American Songbook backed by a full band for an evening of unforgettable music and special guests.
Saturday March 22, 2025 @ The Appel Room: Joan as Police Woman
Hailed as “one of the 21st century’s best musicians” by The Economist, Joan Wasser aka Joan as Police Woman, has established herself as both a leading voice of her generation’s songwriters and an elite performer whose unique sound and original vision heightens the art of her collaborators. A major contributor to key work for an eclectic cohort of artists including Antony and the Johnsons (now ANOHNI), Rufus Wainwright, Damon Albarn, and longtime Fela Kuti drummer Tony Allen, Joan’s insatiable creative drive has spurred 12 razor-sharp solo albums over the past 18 years. On her latest, 2024’s Lemons, Limes and Orchids, Joan is working at the height of her powers, producing music that “turns doubt and anxiety into subtly burnished, soulful nocturnes” (Mojo). For her headlining debut set at Lincoln Center’s American Songbook, Joan and her band comprised of Will Graefe on guitar and Jeremy Gustin on drums will offer songs from Lemons, Limes and Orchids, select jewels from her formidable catalog, and a few surprises.
Sunday March 23, 2025: Meshell Ndegeocello
The New Yorker calls Meshell Ndegeocello “the most significant bassist this country has produced since the advent of Charles Mingus and Flea,” but even that’s selling short her remarkable contribution to the American Songbook. The D.C. area native has always eschewed genre for originality, celebrity for longevity, and musical trends for musical truths. Fans have come to expect the unexpected on her sojourns into soul, R&B, jazz, Hip-Hop and rock, all bound by a search for love, justice, respect, and resolution. Those sonic investigations have defied and redefined the expectations for women, queer artists, and Black musicians for more than 30 years. Ndegeocello remains one of few women who write the music, sing the songs, lead the band, and produce the albums. Her latest album, No More Water, is a collaborative tribute to James Baldwin featuring the poet Staceyann Chin and the musical trio The HawtPlates. Don’t miss this American original, bearing the fruit of a life’s work still in progress.
Friday March 28, 2025 @ David Rubenstein Atrium: Tribute to Poly Styrene
This year’s American Songbook celebrates the voices of women and nonbinary performers who have not only shaped the landscape of music, but have also driven important conversations on gender, identity, and empowerment. Galvanized by a Sex Pistols concert, the UK-born Marion Elliot adapted the sobriquet Poly Styrene, formed a band and then promptly changed the history of rock by recording the seminal punk anthem Oh Bondage! Up Yours! Poly Styrene would only release one album in the 1970s, but Germ Free Adolescents would prove to be one of the most influential LPs of its era. For this evening of music by and inspired by Poly Styrene and her band X-Ray Spex, the American Songbook band—featuring Megan Maloney (guitar), Barbara Duncan (percussion), Flora Lucini (bass), and Elenna Canlas (keyboards and vocals)—will be joined by an array of musical luminaries, all paying their respects to a true punk pioneer.
Friday April 04, 2025 @ David Rubenstein Atrium: Tribute to The Slits
This year’s American Songbook series celebrates the voices of women and nonbinary performers who have not only shaped the landscape of music, but have also driven important conversations on gender, identity, and empowerment. Few artists fit that bill more precisely than The Slits, a riotous, pioneering, female-led UK experimental band that parlayed a love for dub, punk, and surf rock into an influential and durable DIY success story. Originally formed in 1976 by the legendary Ari Up and Palmolive, the group’s notorious debut LP Cut spawned a genuine radio hit with their raucous cover of “I Heard It Through the Grapevine.” The many hits of The Slits will be presented by the American Songbook band—featuring Megan Maloney (guitar), Barbara Duncan (percussion), Flora Lucini (bass), and Elenna Canlas (keyboards and vocals)—joined by an array of musical luminaries, all paying their respects to one of the true pioneers of punk.
Sunday April 06, 2025 @ Wu Tsai Theater, David Geffen Hall: Gossip and ESG: Honoring Fanny
Three generations of women at the forefront of rock and roll are celebrated in this earth-shaking evening. The brashly soulful voice of Beth Ditto powers the GLAAD Award-nominated power pop punk trio Gossip, whose 2009 single “Heavy Cross” skyrocketed their album Music for Men to Gold and Multi-Platinum certification across the EU. The legendary Bronx-based female funk rock collective ESG set the stage for whole genres of sound, including post punk and house music. Songs from the group’s early EPs have been so heavily sampled by rap’s A-listers (including by Wu-Tang Clan, The Beastie Boys and MF DOOM) that their sound has become nearly indivisible from Hip-Hop. ESG’s seminal 1983 debut album Come Away with ESG was acknowledged by Pitchfork as one of the 50 Best Albums of the 1980s. Amidst sets by both Gossip and ESG, Lincoln Center will honor the surviving members of the pioneering 1970s-era LA band Fanny, the first all-female rock band to record a full album at a major label.
Friday April 11, 2025 @ David Rubenstein Atrium: Mixtape – Women in Punk
The essence of punk music has always been impulsive, spontaneous, eclectic, audacious, and exciting. Those qualities also describe a great mixtape! Prepare yourself for an unpredictable evening inspired by the rich history of women and nonbinary artists in punk rock, including vanguard creators like Siouxsie Sioux, Patti Smith, Debbie Harry, The Raincoats, X-Ray Spex, The Slits, Kathleen Hanna, Laura Jane Grace, Beth Ditto, and many more. Mixtape: Women in Punk features the ace lineup of the American Songbook band—Megan Maloney (guitar), Barbara Duncan (percussion), Flora Lucini (bass), and Elenna Canlas (keyboards and vocals)—joined by an array of musical luminaries TBA.
Saturday April 12, 2025 @ Alice Tully Hall: 4132314
The varied traditions of Mediterranean folk music are reimagined through a modern, experimental lens in 4132314, an epic collaborative project from the acclaimed Catalan vocal duo Tarta Relena, the genius compositional partners Los Sara Fontan, and the percussion and vocal Occitan duo Cocanha. Together, these three pairs of artists present a distinctly theatrical concert inspired by the visual repetition of dressmaking patterns from classical textile mills, the inherent musicality of cloth’s production, and the until-now unsung effort of the countless women who wove their lives into the very fabric of history. Vivified by intoxicating polyphony, innovative instrumentation, Byzantine rhythmic construction, and an unmistakable sense of DIY creativity, 4132314 celebrates collective work, ingenuity, solidarity, sorority, and the common thread of connection that binds us all. Winner of the 2022 Ciutat de Barcelona Award, 4132314 makes its U.S. debut at Lincoln Center.
Tuesday April 15, 2025 @ Wu Tsai Theater, David Geffen Hall: Ana Tijoux
It has been nearly a decade since the GRAMMY-nominated and Latin GRAMMY Award-winning emcee Ana Tijoux dropped her critically acclaimed album Vengo, a “dazzling” (NPR) blend of Hip-Hop and Andean traditional sounds. In the years between, the French Chilean rapper and songwriter has released over 15 singles, coped with the sadness of profound personal loss, and grown significantly as an artist. Her long-awaited new LP, 2024’s aptly-named Vida, featuring guest turns from Talib Kweli and iLe, displays Tijoux’s development boldly with songs that “weave activism, emotional and spiritual growth… offered freely and generously” (AllMusic). In a concert that brings South America to the American Songbook, Tijoux and her live band spotlight the intricate arrangements laced throughout Vida alongside other hits from her catalog for a whirlwind trip through the worlds of rap, jazz, Latin folk, and funk, all tinted with unvarnished emotion and a sharp sense of humor.