Sunday May 27, 2012 2:40pm - 3:10pm PDT
Folklife Cafe
47.62383, -122.35084
Music Performance,
(if applicable)
- Genre EMD -- Africa - MUSIC
- URL
- Biography Olympia native Sean Gaskell plays the West African Kora, a 21 string harp native to the Mandinka people of The Gambia, Senegal, Mali, Guinea, and Guinea Bissau. The instrument dates back a few hundred years. Many of the songs played on the Kora come from the era of Sunjata Keita, the person who founded the Mande empire back in the mid thirteenth century. The Kora sounds similar to a harp, and with 21 strings, there is much room for personal innovation and improvisation. Gaskell studied the Kora in The Gambia in 2008, and will be returning there in January of '12. He anticipates his first CD release to take place in March of 2012. Visit myspace.com/seankora and listen to a few tracks that will be included in this recording.
