Malian musician Mamadou Diabate, a 2005 Grammy Award nominee, comes to campus Friday, March 9 at 8 p.m. in the Nott Memorial, where he will give a solo performance on the kora, a 21-string harp.
This event, free to the Union community, is open to the public. Ticket prices are $15 general admission, $10 for seniors and $5 for students.
Diabate also will give a lecture and free performance during Professor Tim Olsen's “Music and Culture of Africa” class, Friday, March 9 at 1:50 p.m. at the Nott. This event is free and open to the public.
Born in 1975 in Kita, a Malian city long known as the center for arts and culture of the Manding people of West Africa, Diabate has been performing in the United States since 1996 and has played at the United Nations, Lincoln Center, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Smithsonian. He also has performed with jazz luminaries Donald Byrd and Randy Weston, Zimbabwean legend Thomas Mapfumo and blues masters Eric Bibb and Guy Davis.
His most recent solo kora album, “Behmanka,” was nominated for a 2005 Grammy Award in the “Best Traditional World Album of the Year” category.
Diabate lives in North Carolina. His appearance at Union is sponsored by the Department of Music, Africana Studies Program and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.