Vienna Carroll

Vienna Carroll is a Harlem-based singer, actor, storyteller/playwright, historian, and herbalist. Her soulful voice and powerful storytelling draw from her roots in the Black church and her Alabama family traditions. A graduate of Yale University with a B.A. in African American Studies, she presents powerful self-emancipation stories coupled with spirituals and Black folk songs reimagined for today. 

She has performed solo and with her band The Folk at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Langston Hughes House, Schomburg Center, Bitter End, BlackAmericana Fest and sea music festivals celebrating and preserving Black cultural and spiritual legacies. The Folk are: Keith Johnston (Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam, Jon Hendricks) on guitar; Stanley Banks (George Benson) on bass; Washboard XT/Newman Taylor Baker (Matthew Shipp, Henry Grimes, Ebony Hillbillies) on washboard. 

Carroll has released four albums as well as three singles from an upcoming work. 

Her theater credits include her award-winning musical docudramas in the NYC Fringe Festival and as resident artist at the Hudson River Museum. She just completed an America 250 project with her band that combines Black storytelling, traditional roots music, vignettes, slideshows and audience participation.

Carroll lives in Harlem with her wife Katharine, her garden and window boxes.