Ablaye Cissoko is “one of the finest kora players of his generation”

World Music Central

Resonance is a musical collision of cultures from around the globe. Together, Senegalese Kora player Ablaye Cissoko, French classical violinist Gabriel Richard and Senegalese songwriter Felwine Sarr juxtapose the sung repertoire of West African classical music, Afrobeat and Baroque European music with electrifying results. Richard and Sarr are both Duke professors: Richard in the Department of Romance Studies and Sarr in French and Francophone Studies.

With an inspiringly multidisciplinary career, Sarr is an intellectual, humanist, academic, philosopher, economist, playwright and poet – as well as a musician. In 2021, he was named among Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people for his work restituting African and Asian artworks to their countries of origin. His intimate songwriting could be described as Afro-folk, with reggae accents and evocative melodic sensibilities. Resonance will be a multilingual poetic experience, with texts and poetry punctuating the duo’s scintillating music-making.

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