Toumani Diabate at NYU Skirball Center

When Toumani plays he begins in meditation—listening to the kora and waiting for inspiration to come through him, as if the expectant audience were not actually in front of him…waiting…He plays simply at first and then ever-more complexly until he is weaving a tapestry of sound, echoes, base, high notes and low ones; a music of humans and gods, of gods through this human.