Balla Kouyaté

Join balafon virtuoso Balla Kouyaté for a unique quartet performance on The Colonial stage!

As soon as Balla Kouyaté was old enough to sit up, his father placed a mallett in his hand. If their 800-year-old lineage of balafon players were a baobab tree, Balla would be its newest branch. The Kouyaté family are griots from the village of Niagassola on the Mali-Guinea border. In West African culture, griots are more than just eminent musicians — they are storytellers, soothsayers and peacemakers. They transmit their oral history like a long game of telephone across generations.

Kouyaté has been featured on over 45 albums, including Silkroad’s Sing Me Home, Yo-Yo Ma’s Songs of Joy and Peace, Angelique Kidjo’s Oyo, and Vusi Mahlasela’s Say Africa. His music has been recorded for the Library of Congress and heard in venues like Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Symphony Space, and The Kennedy Center as well as festivals throughout US and Europe. As an educator, he has offered masterclasses in universities and schools across the country including Harvard University, MIT, Berklee College of Music and CalArts. Kouyaté was chosen as a NEA National Heritage Fellow in 2019.

Event sponsored by Elise Drake