Jordi Savall i Bernadet is a Spanish conductor, composer and viol player. He has been one of the major figures in the field of Western early music since the 1970s, largely responsible for popularizing the viol family of instruments in contemporary performance and recording. As a historian of early music his repertoire features everything from medieval, Renaissance and Baroque through to the Classical and Romantic periods. He has incorporated non-western musical traditions in his work; including African vernacular music for a documentary on slavery.
Hespèrion XXI is an international early music ensemble. The group was formed in Basel, Switzerland in 1974 as Hespèrion XX by Catalan musical director Jordi Savall, his wife Montserrat Figueras (soprano), Lorenzo Alpert, and Hopkinson Smith. The group changed its name to Hespèrion XXI at the beginning of the 21st century. The name "Hespèrion" is derived from a word in Classical Greek which referred to the people of the Italian and Iberian peninsulas.
Toumani Diabaté was a Malian kora player. In addition to performing the traditional music of Mali, he was involved in cross-cultural collaborations with flamenco, blues, jazz, and other international styles of music. In 2006, the London-based newspaper The Independent named him one of the fifty best African artists. In its obituary, The Times described him as "a bold and innovative musical visionary".
Juan del Encina was a composer, poet, priest, and playwright, often credited as the joint-father of Spanish drama, alongside Gil Vicente. His birth name was Juan de Fermoselle. He spelled his name Enzina, but this is not a significant difference; it is two spellings of the same sound, in a time when "correct spelling" as we know it barely existed.
Songlines is a British magazine launched in 1999 that covers music from traditional and popular to contemporary and fusion, featuring artists from around the globe.
Baba Sissoko is a Malian percussionist.
Paolo Pandolfo is an Italian virtuoso player, composer, and teacher of music for the viola da gamba, born on January 31, 1964.
Ballaké Sissoko is a Malian player of the kora. He has worked with Toumani Diabaté and Taj Mahal, and is a member of the group 3MA with Driss El Maloumi and Rajery.
Juan de Triana was a Spanish composer of the Renaissance period, active in the second half of the 15th century during the reign of the Catholic Monarchs. Pope Sixtus IV issued a bull on 9 February 1478 that listed De Triana as Prebendary of the Cathedral of Sevilla for at least a year before. He later moved to the Cathedral of Toledo, where it was recorded that in 1483 he was a teacher of six children in the Cathedral, with a salary of 18,000 maravedíes, a significant quantity at the time. Possibly Triana held this position until 1490, when he was replaced by Pedro de Lagarto. He died in Seville on 28 January 1494, and was buried near the gate of the chapel of the Virgen de la Antigua. In his will, he left a bequest to endow a chaplaincy to sing twenty-five masses a month for his soul at the altar of San Juan Bautista, near his place of burial.
Juan de Urrede or Juan de Urreda was a Flemish singer and composer active in Spain in the service of the Duke of Alba and King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. He was born Johannes de Wreede in Bruges.
Chamber Music is an album by Ballaké Sissoko and Vincent Segal. It was released in 2009 by the French label No Format! and in 2011 by the U.S. label Six Degrees Records. The result of a close collaboration between the two friends and musicians, it melds Sissoko's traditional kora playing with Segal's trip hop infused approach to the classical cello.
No Format! is an independent record label based in Paris founded in 2004 by Laurent Bizot, later joined in 2007 by Thibaut Mullings.
World Music Network is a UK-based record label specializing in world music.
3MA is a contemporary African music group, consisting of three players of different string instruments: Ballaké Sissoko from Mali on kora, Driss El Maloumi from Morocco on oud and Rajery from Madagascar on valiha. The band takes its name from the first two letters of each member's country of origin in French: Madagascar, Mali, and Maroc.
Rajery, born Germain Randrianrisoa, is a player of the valiha from Madagascar who founded the modern valiha orchestra. As an infant, he lost all the fingers on one of his hands; subsequently, he became a self-taught valiha player.
Waed Bouhassoun is a Syrian singer and oud player. She has released four solo albums of traditional Syrian music, and toured internationally since 2010. She is a founding instructor-performer for the project "Orpheus XXI – Music for life and dignity," supporting refugee musicians in Europe. In 2018, she was made a chevalier (knight) of the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
Majid Bekkas, also known as Abdelmajid Bekkas, is a Moroccan musician on guembri, oud, guitar and vocals, who is internationally known for his contributions to World music and Ethno jazz with North African roots.
New Ancient Strings is a studio album by the Malian musicians Toumani Diabaté and Ballaké Sissoko, released on 22 June 1999 by the British label Hannibal Records. The album comprises eight instrumental duets composed by Diabaté for kora, a stringed instrument of West African music. Diabaté and Sissoko are esteemed as the best and the second-best kora players of their generation, respectively. Their duets were recorded in a single live take within a marble hallway of Bamako's conference centre on the night of 22 September 1997, coinciding with Mali's Independence Day.
Kassé Mady Diabaté was a Malian singer, musician and griot. His soft and particular voice with deep undertones – an atypical characteristic for a griot – earned him the nickname "The golden voice of Mali". He is considered, together with Salif Keita, as one of the greatest Mandinka artists of his generation.
Moslem Rahal is a Syrian musician known for his expertise as a ney player and composer. With a career spanning both Western and Middle Eastern musical traditions, Rahal has garnered acclaim for his collaborations with singers, orchestras, and bands. He also conducted scholarly research at universities and crafting the oriental instruments, ney and kawala maker since 1991.
