event details

Béla Fleck with Oumou Sangare, Toumani Diabaté and Bassekou Kouyate

Saturday 17th January 2009, 7.30pm

Glasgow Royal Concert Hall : Auditorium

US banjo legend Béla Fleck journeyed through Africa in search of his instrument’s roots. This unique musical odyssey was chronicled by his filmmaker brother, Sascha Paladino, and released in 2008 as the award-winning documentary Throw Down Your Heart. For his first ever concert based on this project, Fleck is joined by three of his star collaborators from Mali: the stunning singer Oumou Sangare, pioneering kora maestro Toumani Diabaté and Bassekou Kouyate a contemporary virtuoso of the ngoni, an ancient, lute-like antecedent of the banjo. A recent collaboration of these artists was described by The Guardian as “one of the events of the year”.

Completing this magical reunion of kindred spirits and cultures will be Scotland’s own highly acclaimed Gaelic singer Kathleen MacInnes and Ireland’s Liam Ó Maonlaí. Liam strongly believes every country has its own séan nos, “when in the company of other cultures, the singing of this style opens a window into what it is that connects us”.