It’s hard to imagine a more impressive and passionate rendering of Malian music on the classical guitar.
Derek Gripper is one of South Africa’s leading guitarists, whose love of the kora set him transcribing and recording some of its greatest works, changing the face of classical guitar…
When Gripper released One Night on Earth, his first album of kora translations, the classical guitar legend John Williams thought it was “absolutely impossible until I heard Derek Gripper do it,” while kora maestro Toumani Diabaté asked for confirmation that it was indeed just one person playing. Both invited Derek to collaborate.
Gripper has brilliantly transferred [the kora] repertoire onto a regular six string guitar. He’s opening a whole new repertoire of classical guitar music; bringing African guitar into the classical mainstream.
***** Evening Standard
Derek performed with Williams in London’s Shakespeare’s Globe and King’s Place, and with Diabaté and his Symmetric Orchestra at the Acoustik Festival Bamako, in Mali. His 2016 Carnegie Hall debut paired him with Mali’s lauded Trio da Kali, and the UK’s Songlines magazine honoured him with ‘Best Album in Africa and the Middle East’ for his second album Libraries on Fire.
His playing has a depthless beauty, which does full justice to the complexity of Toumani’s compositions. To do so without any hint of the music being dumbed down is a staggering achievement on solo guitar.
Songlines
Since these first two recordings put kora/guitar translations on the map, his more recent recordings have incorporated elements of his kora explorations in original compositions and improvisations, captured on tape in the field and in the studio, while his Bach recordings have shown that African music has a lot to teach us about recapturing the natural simplicity of early European music.
More than a labour of love, Gripper has brought a new purity to the dream-like improvisatory nature of these compositions
Classical Guitar
Touring globally from his home in Cape Town, Gripper is currently collaborating with Malian kora master Ballaké Sissoko on a new duo project, and recording for the record label Platoon.
