PUTNEY, Vt. – Next Stage Arts presents a concert with Malian balafon player and singer Balla Kouyaté and American cellist, singer, and composer Mike Block, on Sunday, Feb. 5 at 4 p.m. Composer, kora player, percussionist, and vocalist John Hughes will open.
Balla Kouyaté and Mike Block have been collaborating for over a decade, bonding over their shared interest in music from across the world, and their commitment to innovating on their instruments. Balla Kouyate, a balafon player and singer coming out of the Djeli tradition of Mali was awarded a National Heritage Fellowship from the NEA. Mike Block is a Grammy Award-winning musician with the Silk Road Ensemble originally trained in Western Classical music.
“Two world-class masters from different continents unite to bring together different musical traditions with Mike and Balla,” says Keith Marks, Executive Director of Next Stage Arts. “Balla was named a World Heritage Fellow by the National Endowment for the Arts and is the heritage keeper of his region’s heritage instrument, the balafon. Mike Block, a member of Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble, is known in numerous musical circles as a master at the cello. Next Stage is over the moon about presenting these two virtuosic musicians.”
To say that Balla Kouyaté was born into a musical family is an understatement. His family lineage goes back over 800 years to Balla Faséké, the first of an unbroken line of djelis in the Kouyaté clan. Djelis are the oral historians, musicians, and performers who keep alive and celebrate the history of the Mandé people of Mali, Guinea, and other West African countries. Balla explains that the word “Djeli” derives from his Mandinka language, “It means blood and speaks to the central role we play in our society.” One must be born into it. The Kouyaté family is regarded as the original praise-singers of the Malinké people, one of the ethnic groups found across much of West Africa. In 2001, the “Sosso bala” was declared a site of intangible cultural heritage by UNESCO. This powerful symbol of Mande culture is brought out once a year for ceremonial playing. Balla also regularly plays with world-renowned West African musicians who are touring in the states. He often accompanies kora master Mamadou Diabaté, and in 2004 joined NEA National Heritage Fellow Sidiki Cond Kouyaté for a month-long residency at Carnegie Hall.
Mike Block is a pioneering cello player, singer, composer, and educator, hailed by Yo- Yo Ma as the “ideal musician of the 21st-Century.” Mike is a member of Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble (SRE), having joined in 2005 while a student at The Juilliard School. Touring extensively throughout the world with SRE, he has been featured as cello and vocal soloist, contributed arrangements and compositions, and earned a Grammy Award in 2017 for their album, Sing Me Home. As an innovator, Mike is among the first wave of cellists to adopt a strap in order to stand and move while playing. With The Block Strap, Mike was the first standing cellist to perform at Carnegie Hall. The NY Times characterized the performance as, “Breathless … Half dance, half dare.” As an educator, Mike is passionate about creativity and collaboration, and is the founding director of Silkroad’s Global Musician Workshop, and the Mike Block String Camp.
John Hughes is an internationally renowned composer, kora player, percussionist, and vocalist whose style crosses myriad cultural boundaries and fuses disparate influences. Playing ancient traditional instruments not often heard in the United States, many of which he builds himself, John takes his audience on an intimate musical tour of universal expressions of joy and hope that soothe and up-lift the spirit. Whether playing elegant and stately pieces from the classical repertoire of the Jeli’s (Griot’s) of West Africa or original compositions, John’s kora playing has an uncommon beauty that is, at once, exquisitely detailed and bold. His signature pieces are rhythmically nuanced and laced with syncopations that cascade off the strings into whirlpools of mesmerizing sound.
Also a sculptor, dancer, instrument builder, and educator, John holds a B.F.A. from the Tyler School of Art of Temple University and the West Surrey College of Art and Design in Farnham, England and an M.F.A. from the University of Wisconsin in Madison. John has studied the music, song and dance of West Africa for over 28 years, training with numerous master drummers and dancers from Guinea and Mali, including Mamady Keita and Famoudou Konate. As a Kora player, John is totally self-taught and has, thus, developed a style all his own. Having intently studied traditional kora music for 10 years before he even touched the instrument, however, his playing is deeply rooted in the ancient Mande tradition.
Next Stage is located at 15 Kimball Hill in downtown Putney, Vt. Tickets are discounted in advance or can be bought at the door. Advance tickets are available at www.nextstagearts.org. Next Stage will provide a beer, wine, and cocktail cash bar. For information, call 802-387-0102 or visit www.nextstagearts.org.
Next Stage serves southeastern Vermont as a regional cultural hub, arts producer, and instigator of meaningful cultural experiences. Founded in 2010 as a nonprofit organization, Next Stage Arts is a transformative, community-centered project dedicated to revitalizing Putney’s cultural and economic village center through excellence in arts programming valuing diversity as a springboard for nurturing community.
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