“How come we’ve never heard of this beautiful instrument until now?” This was posted by a first-year college student to my world music course discussion board recently. He voiced what many of his ...

Why are there no new musical instruments? It’s as if the electric guitar was the ultimate innovation, the last nail in the coffin of music’s social supremacy. If fresh organic sounds are an endangered ...

Covering the upcoming concert by Ballaké Sissoko and Vincent Segal has rekindled my long-time love of the West African kora, the beautiful 21-string harp-lute used by griots, the storytellers who… ...

When Ballake Sissoko, a renowned kora player from Mali, looked in his case at his Paris home after flying from New York, he found the instrument in pieces. By Maria Cramer A renowned Malian musician ...

The hallowed tradition of kora playing in Sona Jobarteh’s family passed down the male line. One of her teachers dismissed it as “an ethnic thing.” But it has brought her international acclaim. By Aina ...