Brandy Clark, Allison Russell named 2024 NYU Americana Artists-in-Residence

Brandy Clark and Allison Russell have nearly two dozen combined Grammy nominations between them and enter 2024 on the precipice of achieving their greatest mainstream renown to date.

The recent announcement that they will serve as 2024's Americana Artists-in-Residence for New York University's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development is included in that growing recognition for both performers.

The role will involve the award-winning pair of songwriters, singers and multi-instrumentalists presenting, curating and moderating various discussions, workshops, classroom visits and performances.

Clark and Russell's residencies follow those in the past three years by Rosanne Cash, Taj Mahal and Leyla McCalla. The Americana Music Association and Foundation and New York University's partnership is noted, via a press release, as being "designed to enhance the understanding of and appreciation for the origins, history, and cultural impact of Americana music."

The collaboration is curated and produced by Jed Hilly, Executive Director of the Americana Music Association and Foundation and Phil Galdston, NYU Steinhardt's Director of Songwriting.

The 66th Grammy Awards will serve as a career-redefining moment for both artists-in-residence.

Clark's critically acclaimed, latest eponymous album release has her nominated for six Grammys at the upcoming event: Best Americana Album, Best Americana Performance ("Dear Insecurity" feat. Brandi Carlile), Best American Roots Song ("Dear Insecurity"), Best Country Song ("Buried"), Best Country Solo Performance ("Buried"), and Best Musical Theater Album (Shucked).

About her Brandi Carlile-produced album, Clark told The Tennessean that she arrived at a "beautiful, flatly stated and plain-spoken" album inspired by John Prine and Harlan Howard by "knowing how to layer simple [metaphorical] meat on the bone and [making] it so well that you keep gnawing at it until you get down to the marrow."

Insofar as Russell, her self-described "genre-fluid" sound on her sophomore solo album "The Returner" has yielded nominations in four categories at the upcoming Grammy Awards. A press release highlights her stylings as a "rhythm-first expression of liberation, love, and self-respect" that "[uses] her platform to elevate, educate, and inspire."

In a 2022 Tennessean feature, Russell described her work as "[honoring] the foundation being set for total, whole, equal, and human creativity" by making music that "empowers, heals and does the tough work required to open up spaces and make everyone feel welcome."

Founded in 1890 and located in the heart of New York City's Greenwich Village, New York University's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development focuses on the arts, education, health, media and psychology by empathetically "[expanding] human capacity through public service, global collaboration, research, scholarship and practice."

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Brandy Clark, Allison Russell named 2024 NYU Artists-in-Residence