Ballaké Sissoko & Derek Gripper / Maryna Krut

A sublime duo mixing Mandé music from Mali with classical guitar, and Ukrainian songs on bandura in an exciting cross boundary evening

• Ballaké Sissoko & Derek Gripper: Malian virtuoso Ballaké Sissoko, the world’s preeminent kora player, creates a new African string theory with Derek Gripper, one of South Africa’s leading guitarists.

• Maryna Krut: Maryna Krut uses her powerful voice and Ukrainian bandura to infuse her country's traditional music with jazz and other influences.

Ballaké Sissoko & Derek Gripper

Malian virtuoso Ballaké Sissoko has taken over the mantle of greatest living kora master. Ballaké is a seminal improviser and cross-cultural collaborator, with an ability to unlock every possible nuance on the kora with subtleties rarely heard on any instrument. Derek Gripper is a classical guitarist from South Africa whose love of the kora set him transcribing and recording some of the greatest works of the instrument and starting a twenty year career performing this music all over the world, changing the face of classical guitar and giving the instrument its very first African repertoire. 

The two musicians met in 2022 in Paris for one show. They share no common verbal language yet managed to perform a unique show together of completely improvised music. They returned to the stage in London a month later, and then to the recording studio for a full-length album released in 2023. Their performances and recordings are all achieved without any verbal communication, just a mutual love of their shared repertoire and the possibilities of the plucked string. Taking the griot practice of spontaneous variation to a new level, Ballaké and Derek explore Mandé music almost as Keith Jarrett explored jazz in his improvised solo piano concerts: unpremeditated listening, allowing music to flow freely between improvisation and quotation, taking off from a shared musical language in Manding music. 

Maryna Krut

Maryna Krut uses her powerful voice and Ukrainian bandura to infuse her country's traditional music with jazz and other influences. The war in Ukraine transformed Maryna Krut from being a performer updating a beautiful tradition of music to being a witness testifying to people around the world about the devastating conflict in her homeland. These days, the 28-year-old musician leads a double life. From her temporary home in the west of Ukraine, she travels to the front lines to perform for soldiers. And she also travels abroad to perform, relating what she has seen—and thanking audiences for their support of the Ukrainian people.

Maryna plays the bandura, a Ukrainian string instrument that looks like a cross between a lute and a zither. Steeped as a child in her country’s traditional music, she now incorporates some non-traditional elements into her playing, principally jazz, using it both as a solo instrument and to accompany her powerful singing. In Ukraine, she gained a national following after appearances on that country’s versions of The X Factor and The Voice as well as placing in Eurovision. Now she is expanding her audience as she brings the story and culture of Ukraine to the world.