Toumani Diabaté & Sidiki Diabaté

Duke Performances has been informed by Toumani & Sidiki Diabaté’s management that they experienced unexpected personal and logistical difficulties as they set off from Bamako to start their US tour. These factors, complicated by Toumani’s poor health, have resulted in their inability to travel to the US for their tour — all dates in the States, including their residency and performance at Duke Performances on Wed & Thu, Oct. 1 & 2, have been cancelled. Duke Performances & Toumani Diabaté deeply regret the circumstances that have led to this outcome. We are not currently planning to reschedule the engagement.

Ticket holders for this event will be refunded for the full value of their tickets, plus service charges when applicable. Checks will be issued to the patron of record on the original ticket purchase and mailed to the address on file, please allow 4-6 weeks for delivery. Ticket holders need not contact Duke Performances or the Duke University Box Office, refunds will issue automatically. If you’d like to verify or update your mailing address, you may log into your online account or contact the University Box Office.  If you have additional questions, please contact the Duke University Box Office at 919-684-4444, M-F 11a-6p.

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Malian kora virtuoso and two-time GRAMMY winner Toumani Diabaté shares the stage with his son Sidiki Diabaté, advancing a remarkable musical lineage that the family traces back seventy-two generations. Toumani Diabaté is the world’s greatest living player of the kora — a twenty-one-string West African harp-lute — and is known for his ability to beautifully render melody, rhythm, and bass simultaneously. The younger Diabaté apprenticed with his father, and is developing his own incisive voice on the instrument.

This exceptional and intimate concert features father and son performing as a duo. “We’re not going backwards, trying to play just how my father and grandfather did these songs,” the elder Diabaté says. “We have to do it our way. We’re modern griots, we live in the city, we’re connected to the world.” The two have only been playing together publicly since late 2013, and World Circuit recently released their debut album, Toumani & Sidiki. The Times of London ranks the collaboration “among Toumani’s best work — joyous, spiritual, and uplifting.”