Ballaké Sissoko and Derek Gripper collaborate

Esteemed Malian Kora player Ballaké Sissoko and South African Classical Guitarist Derek Gripper release collaborative album which transcends language

 

The Duo also announce a South African National Tour 

 

Stream here

 

A meeting between instruments, not traditions. Most certainly, the dialogue between Ballaké Sissoko’s Kora and Derek Gripper’s guitar is a summit between two master musicians who are operating with control and freedom at the highest peaks of their art. There are two bulls in the pen. And it is equally certain that these maestros emerge from quite different and distant musical worlds – Sissoko’s kora tradition and lineage traverse the once powerful empire known as Kaabu: located in Gambia, southern Senegal, and Guinea Bissau. Gripper’s stems from the European classical guitar.

The two men do not share a spoken language, but if it is true that music speaks universally, then they were already involved in profound dialogue long before they met for the series of London concerts which yielded this recording session – a session which matches deep communion with sparkling improvisation, which pushes a living tradition into brand new sonic spaces, and opens a live and direct channel of communication between kora and guitar. In the complex web of themes and variations spun by Sissoko’s twenty-two strings and Gripper’s six, a new African string theory is elaborated.

“Musically we tested each other,” says Sissoko, explaining that the most magical aspect of theirencounters are spontaneous. “We have the mastery of our instruments, the technique and a good ear. Derek is very curious, that’s very important.” “He’s just such a good listener,” says Gripper about Sissoko. “It’s not what he plays, it’s how he plays it. He’s an amazing interpreter, the prime master of timbre.”

The Duo have also been gearing up for a South African Tour in Durban, Cape Town and Johannesburg from June 14th until June 21st with the support of the French Institute of South Africa and the Institut français in Paris

Identify your venue of choice and book tickets here

Stream Ballaké Sissoko & Derek Gripper
Platoon.lnk.to/BallakeSissoko_DerekGripper

Order vinyl
https://matsulimusic.bandcamp.com/album/ballak-sissoko-derek-gripper

Connect with Ballaké Sissoko & Derek Gripper

Instagram:@Ballake.Sissoko
Website: Derek Gripper
Website: Ballaké Sissoko