MALI BEFORE 1800

Malian virtuoso Ballaké Sissoko has taken over the mantle of the greatest touring kora player. Derek Gripper is South Africa’s leading guitarist whose love of the kora set him transcribing and recording some of its greatest works, changing the face of classical guitar and giving the instrument its very first African repertoire.

In this final concert in our French Touch series, we look at the unbroken musical tradition of the griot’s of Mali, through French occupation and colonization, and emerging as one of humanity’s most astonishing aural traditions.

In this inaugural collaboration with The World Music Institute, MB1800 sets an intentional path into oral music traditions in a permanent assertion that early music is world music, that most boundaries are imaginary, and that our journey into historical practice has only just begun.