Those that have heard the 21-string African instrument, the kora, would undoubtedly agree that it is one of the world’s most beautiful sounding instruments, especially in the hands of its most renowned player, Toumani Diabaté. This collaboration, Kôrôlén, with the 30-piece London Symphony Orchestra does not in any way overwhelm or blur the beauty of the instrument but instead gives it a lush underpinning that enhances its remarkable sound. Commissioned as a special project by the Barbican Centre in London and produced by World Circuit, these recordings feature Diabaté and his group of close-knit Malian musicians (including Kasse Mady Diabaté and Lassana Diabaté) accompanied by the soaring presence of the LSO in dedicated arrangements by Nico Muhly and Ian Gardiner and conducted by Clark Rundell. The title bestowed by Diabaté on this groundbreaking release, Kôrôlén, translates from the Mandinka language as “ancestral,” a fitting theme for an album that brings together ancient griot melodies and Western orchestral arrangements, resulting in a whole different side of African music.
Diabaté s playing is steeped in an inherited family tradition that dates back several centuries: his father Sidike Diabaté was the finest kora virtuoso of his generation and made the first internationally released solo kora recordings; at least two of the compositions on Kôrôlén are variations on ancestral pieces performed by Toumani’s father. Born in Mali in 1965, Toumani’s name has become as synonymous with his instrument as Ravi Shankar’s name was with the sitar or Yehudi Menuhin with the violin since releasing his solo debut Kaira (recorded when he was just 21).
African music has famously produced some of the world’s most danceable grooves, but as Diabaté has shown better than anyone, there is another gentler and more meditative current to its creative flow. “There’s a mystic and classical side to African music, a divinity,” he notes. “It is not only about dance, and people need to know this.” So, he took a major step, a forceful leap by employing one of the world’s most famous and willing orchestras, the LSO.
The recording captures the live performance at the Barbican Centre with the opening track “Haïnamady Town” based on an old praise song titled “Kata Ndao” with its counterpoint of kora, strings, and woodwinds. “Mama Souraka,” based on a piece frequently performed by Toumani’s father under the title “Djourou Kara Nany,” is dreamy and features solo oboe and flutes. “Elyne Road” and “Cantelowes Dream,” two tunes played solo by Toumani on his 2008 album The Mande Variations, augment his exquisite kora with graceful orchestral arrangements and a playful quote from Ennio Morricone’s The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Two further pieces, “Moon Kaira” and “Mamadou Kanda Keita” (the latter with a soulful vocal by the late Kasse Mady), radically rework tunes on In The Heart of the Moon.
It is in Nico’s arrangements that we hear The Symmetric Orchestra, Toumani’s band of musicians from Mali’s most celebrated musical families, for the first time. The band includes Fanta Mady Kouyaté, a guitarist from the revered family who are the custodians of the sacred balafon (xylophone) that belonged to the griot of Sunjata Keita (founder of the Mali empire in 1235); balafon player Lassana Diabaté, originally from Guinea, the most versatile virtuoso of balafonists; and Kasse Mady Diabaté, the late great singer from Kela, from an illustrious griot family who specializes in the oral tradition of the story of Sunjata Keita’s rise to power in the thirteenth century, as well as ngoni player Ganda Tounkara and Fode Kouyate on calabash and tama. The contrasting arrangement styles create a wonderful variety in the orchestral textures, putting a new sheen on pieces usually performed in the griot tradition. To illustrate, Toumani suggests that the orchestral version of Kaira is yet another interpretation of the original, a piece with very strong family roots – a piece his father played countless times in “joyous resistance to colonial rule.”
Yes, this is the first of its kind. Never had a kora been deployed as a solo instrument in a symphony orchestra and so the collaboration required careful preparation to find the common ground where the improvisational and interpretative strengths of Malian ancestral music could meet with the more structured demands of an orchestral score. After Diabaté and Rundell had laid the groundwork, Ian Gardiner and Nico Muhly were brought in as arrangers to create a score with which the LSO could work. If Diabaté realizes his full vision, this will become a landmark recording in changing people’s perceptions of African music. It’s yet another stunning example of how music can break down perceived cultural and racial barriers and a shining example of much-needed unity in these times.
