Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Live kora shows in city sold out
CONSIDERED as among some of the most highly regarded kora players of our time, Malian maestro Ballaké Sissoko will be joined by Cape Townbased classical guitarist Derek Gripper, bringing their unique collaboration for the very first time to South African audiences later this month.
Sissoko and Gripper will present their musical offering from the album Ballaké Sissoko and Derek Gripper: A New African String Theory for two days only at the Baxter Concert Hall on June 18 and 19, with the two shows already sold out.
Gripper, a Cape Town-born guitarist whose love for the kora, a West African traditionally 21 stringed instrument, led him to innovatively transcribe and record kora music using a classical guitar.
In 2003, Gripper discovered the music of Malian kora player Toumani Diabaté and around 10 years later, Gripper produced his first album of kora translations of this music, One Night on Earth.
“There are a lot of guitarists in West Africa playing the same repertoire but their way of playing the guitar is very different.
“They don't play in the kora style. So I suppose my innovation was to adapt the style of playing that you get on this 21 string harp to the guitar and using classical guitar techniques,” Gripper said.
“The second kora player that I started transcribing and translating because this music is not written down, it's all in oral tradition, was Ballaké Sissoko.
“So Ballaké has been part of my repertoire and one of the great African composers whose music I have been performing in concerts all over the world for one or two decades.”
Interestingly, Sissoko and Diabaté had produced an album together, New Ancient Strings in 1999, and their fathers' Sidiki Diabaté and Djelimady Sissoko performed together in the national ensemble of Mali.
Despite there not being a shared spoken language between Sissoko and Gripper, since meeting around 10 years ago, the two have shared the stage and studio on several occasions and with the upcoming South African tour, a second tour together.
“The thing that's interesting about our collaboration is that we don't share a spoken language.
“Ballaké speaks Bambara and French and I speak English so we have never had a discussion about music and we never had a rehearsal. We sit down on stage together or we sit down in the recording studio and we play both recollecting pieces that we know from the region and also pieces from my broader repertoire outside of the kora music,” Gripper said.
Sissoko and Gripper have just completed a tour of the East Coast of the US, and have previously performed together in Türkiye, France, Switzerland, the UK, and Sweden.
The upcoming tour, supported by the French Institute of South Africa, Institut français in Paris and Air France, will be a first for Ballaké in South Africa. The South Africa tour will see performances in Durban (The Playhouse Company, June 14), KZN Midlands (Michaelhouse, June 16), Cape Town (Baxter Theatre, June 18 and 19), Braamfontein (Chris Seabrooke Music Hall, June 20), and Johannesburg (The Market Theatre, June 21.
Baxter Theatre marketing manager Fahiem Stellenboom said they were delighted to be hosting the incredible artists.
“To have Malian virtuoso Ballaké Sissoko, who is widely regarded as the greatest touring kora player and one of SA's leading guitarists, Derek Gripper, is hugely exciting. The season is already completely sold out which is testament to their success.”