Horizons: Bridges

Featured Artists

Trio Da Kali

Hawa Kassé Mady Diabaté
Voice

Fodé Lassana Diabaté
Balafon

Mamadou Kouyaté
Bass ngoni

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Affinity Quartet

Shane Chen
Violin

Nicholas Waters
Violin

Isabella Bignasca
Viola

Mee Na Lojewski
Cello

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Peni Candra Rini
Voice, Gamelan

Van-Anh Vo
Voice, Dan Bau, Dan Tranh

Chloë Sobek
Violone

Trio Da Kali

Trio Da Kali is a group of outstanding musicians from the Mande culture of southern Mali, who come from a long line of distinguished griots (specialist hereditary musical artisans).  They are a newly formed group, although they have known each other for many years - and they play Mande griot music like no one else.  Their aim is to bring to the forefront the neglected repertoires and playing styles of the griots.

Hawa Kassé Mady Diabaté | Voice

Hawa Kasse Mady Diabate is undoubtedly Mali’s finest female voice today, revered at home for her knowledge of repertoire and for her powerful, clear and expressive voice, rooted in the tradition of Kela, a village in southwest Mali famous for its griot music, where she grew up. She is the daughter of Mali’s most celebrated male singer, Kasse Mady Diabate – guardian of Kela’s special tradition - and the niece of Mali’s best-known female singer and composer, the late Sira Mory Diabate.  When she first met David Harrington, first violinist of the Kronos Quartet, she sang for him the praise song, Da Kali. Harrington stood transfixed, and then said, “that’s the closest I’ve ever got to the voice of Mahalia Jackson!”.

Fodé Lassana Diabaté | Balafon

Lassana Diabate, the musical director of the group, is a virtuoso balafon player who comes originally from Guinea, where the balafon originates. The balafon as an instrument type played by griots dates back at least to the 13th century.  Lassana began playing balafon at the age of 5 at home in Conakry with his father, Djelisory Diabate, a master balafon player, from Kindia, some 150 kms inland. Lassana later apprenticed himself to some of the celebrated balafon masters such as the late, great El Hadj Djeli Sory Kouyate, also from Kindia, as well as the late Alkali Camara. To this day, Lassana cherishes the now rare recordings of his mentors, whose unique styles continue to be an important inspiration to him. He settled in Mali in the late 1980s after being invited to join the band of the diva Ami Koita, and has since recorded with many of Mali’s top artists such as Toumani Diabate, Salif Keita, Babani Koné, Tiken Jah Fakoly, and Bassekou Kouyaté; he was also a member of the Grammy-nominated Mali-Cuba collaboration, Afrocubism.

Mamadou Kouyaté | Bass ngoni

Mamadou Kouyate is the eldest son of ngoni wizard Bassekou Kouyate. He grew up in Bamako playing the ngoni with his father and the extended family, and is astonishingly creative in the bass lines he produces on this four-string bass string instrument. He is currently touring as a member of Bassekou Kouyate’s new group, Ngoniba. 

Affinity Quartet

Affinity Quartet earns its place as one of the most outstanding string quartets of its generation. Recent awards include Grand Prize, String Quartet First Prize and Audience Prize at the 2023 Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition; 2nd prizes at Bad Tölz and Mozart International String Quartet Competitions (2023); and 3rd Prize at Wigmore Hall International String Quartet Competition (2022). Striving for synergy, intimacy and renewal in its form, Affinity Quartet represents excellence in Australian chamber music. Affinity Quartet is based between Australia and Europe, and receives mentorship from Günter Pichler (Alban Berg Quartet) at Madrid’s International Institute of Chamber Music.

Peni Candra Rini | Voice, Gamelan

Dr. Peni Candra Rini, PhD (b. 1983) is a renowned Javanese singer, composer, and faculty member at the Indonesian Institute of the Arts. The Kronos Quartet has described her as “one of the world’s greatest singers.” She is a master of several traditional forms and is regarded as one of Indonesia’s most daring young composers, one of only a handful of female composers in the majority Muslim nation. She has performed extensively internationally, including several world tours as the featured singer for Robert Wilson’s I La Galigo. She is a recipient of grants from the Asian Cultural Council, is a two-time grantee of the US State Department’s One Beat and Fulbright programs, and in 2022 was named an Aga Khan Foundation laureate of the arts. In 2023 she became the first woman to be commissioned to compose a work for the Mangkunegaran court of Central Java and in 2024 was bestowed the court name Raden Nganten Tumenggung, the highest honor offered by the Raja. In 2024 she completed a suite for string quartet commissioned by the Kronos Quartet and Carnegie Hall. Entitled Segara Gunung the thirty-minute work concerns the impacts of climate change on the Indonesian archipelago, and has been performed by Kronos on major stages throughout the US and Europe. In 2024 she published two albums on the New Amsterdam label, in collaboration with Shahzad Ismaily, Andy McGraw, and members of Deerhoof, featuring her experimental compositions for Javanese and Western ensembles. 

Van-Anh Vo | Voice, Dan Bau, Dan Tranh

VÂN-ÁNH VANESSA VÕ began studying the đàn tranh from the age of four and graduated with distinction from the Vietnam National Academy of Music in 1995. That same year, Võ won the Championship Title at the National Đàn Tranh Competition and began touring internationally. She has performed in over 25 countries and presented her music in some of the most prestigious venues in the U.S., including Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, NPR, Lincoln Center, the Olympic Games 2012 Music Festival, as well as countless community hall workshops and gatherings. Since settling in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2001, Võ has focused on collaborating with musicians across different music genres to create new works, bringing Vietnamese traditional music to a wider audience, and preserving her cultural legacy through teaching. 

Võ is co-composer of the Oscar® nominated and Sundance Grand Jury Prize Best Documentary winner Daughter from Danang. She also co-composed the Emmy® Award-winning film and soundtrack for Bolinao 52. Her latest CD, Three-Mountain Pass, was selected as one of NPR’s Best 10 World Music CDs of 2013.

Chloë Sobek | Violone

Chloë Sobek is a composer-performer based in Naarm, Australia. Her work is currently concerned with investigating more-than-human scholarship within a sonic practice, leading to a diverse enquiry of sonic and musical forms, from acoustemology through to Noise Music. Chloë’s practice is built around the Renaissance double bass, the violone. Her creative process couples maximalist and musique concrète sensibilities such as audio-montage and electronic processing. She has been described as ‘an artist that is thinking deeply about how to aestheticise what’s on everyone’s mind; to use art to drive engagement with ideas whilst pushing the boundaries of technique and technicality ’ - Kieran Ruffles, 4zzz.