September 5, 2022
12 pm | Scène Québecor

Zal Sissokho & Caroline Planté

Kora Flamenca

This concert is the culmination of a long-running musical project. The idea was born during a trip to Seville when Zal Sissokho began to take an interest in the sounds of flamenco. Fascinated by the playing techniques of the Andalusian musicians, his goal was to create music that would marry flamenco with his own Mandinka culture of West Africa. Thus, when an artistic residency was offered to him by the Centre des musiciens du monde in 2018, he called on Caroline Planté (who has already participated in the Festival des Guitares du Monde), a musician with twenty-five years of experience as a composer, soloist and performer, in addition to being one of the few women of our time to play the flamenco guitar professionally. Percussionist Miguel Medina and double bassist Jean-Félix Mailloux will also be on stage with them. Through this creation, Zal seeks to push as much as possible the limits of his instrument: the kora.

BIOGRAPHY

Kora player, singer and songwriter, Zal Sissokho was born in Senegal and arrived in Montreal in 1999. He has performed numerous times on record and on stage, both solo and with other artists such as Les frères Diouf, Celso Machado, Constantinople, Fakhass Sico, Lilison di Kinara, Richard Séguin, Takadja and Muna Mingole. He has participated in several large-scale musical projects, including Cirque du Soleil’s O show in Las Vegas, as well as having contributed to the music of film productions such as L’autre Maison (Mathieu Roy) and Un dimanche à Kigali (Robert Favreau). Since 2001, his work has been supported several times by the Canada Council for the Arts and the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec.