West African musician Yacouba Sissoko to perform at Kirkland Art Center. What to know
You’ll hear this complaint all the time: “Every time I go out it’s always the same bands, playing the same music. Why doesn’t anyone offer something different?”
You want something different? Well, then, the Kirkland Art Center has the show for you.
The Center will welcome world-renowned West African musician Yacouba Sissoko to the KAC Live stage for a special concert at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, April 19.
Yacouba, one of the world’s foremost masters of the African harp-like instrument known as the kora, will be joined by Moussa Diabate on n'goni (strings) and Alagie Saho on djembe (drums).
“We’re so excited to introduce the community to Yacouba Sissoko, whose melodies emerge out of the musical storytelling traditions of Mali. This is something new and fabulous for the Kirkland Art Center. "Don’t miss it”, urged KAC Executive Director, Anita Welych.
Seamlessly transitioning between jazz, pop, R&B, and classical music, Yacouba’s flexible virtuosity as a kora player has afforded him the opportunity to collaborate with an eclectic mix of musicians. He has performed, toured and recorded with well-known African musicians, such as Sidiki Conde (Tokounou), Abdoulaye Diabate, Baaba Maal, and Kakande, and with many famous Western musicians, such as Harry Belafonte, Paul Simon, Leroy Jenkins and Leni Stern.
Yacouba regularly headlines music festivals across North America. He has performed at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington DC, the Playboy Jazz Festival in Los Angeles, the New York Family Arts Festival, the Grant Park Music Festival in Millennium Park, the Portland Jazz Festival, the Detroit Jazz Festival and the Monterey Jazz Festival.
As much a teacher as a musical performer, Yacouba also devotes much of his time to giving back to the community, regularly performing cultural programs and benefit concerts. In 2007 he was selected as a Teaching Artist by the Weill Music Institute at Carnegie Hall and Carnegie’s Musical Explorers program, and he often provides workshops and presentations to primary school and university students.
He will continue that practice during his visit to Upstate New York, as he will spend the day sharing his music and stories with students at Clinton Central Schools in their “Clinton Out Loud!” event.
The special collaboration between the Kirkland Art Center and Clinton Middle School involves a performance by Yacouba at the school’s yearly literacy event "Clinton Out Loud!" along with other artists, poets, and performers.
This event aims to ignite a passion for poetry, performance, and storytelling among students, all while celebrating the rich diversity of artistic expression. The community will be able to interact with the culminating poetic work, displayed around the gazebo in the Village Green, serving as a testament to the students' creativity and a means of sharing their voices with the wider community during the week of April 20-27.
Tickets ($20 general/$18 KAC Members) for the KAC Live concert with Yacouba Sissoko are available at www.kacny.org/kac-live or at the door.
This article originally appeared on Observer-Dispatch: Clinton, NY's Kirkland Art Center welcomes Yacouba Sissoko
