Fodé Lassana Diabaté is So Hot Right Now

The second performance in this series takes place at a yoga studio! Located within the Innerwork Center, Yoga Helps is a carpeted yoga studio specializing in gentle yoga. This unique setting means that no shoes will be allowed in the room! Barefeet/sockfeet required. Seating is available in chairs or floor cushions. Please use the side doors off the alleyway to enter the building, and join us after the performance for a light reception in the hallway.

Thank you to concert sponsors Tim and Karen Golden!

Fodé Lassana Diabaté is the sixth composer to be featured on Rosette’s So Hot Right Now series, which began in October of 2021. A virtuoso balafon (22-key xylophone) player, Fodé Lassana Diabaté lives in Mali where he is the leader of Trio Da Kali, a group of Malian griots whose aim is to bring back forgotten repertoires and styles of the Mande griot tradition.

Rosette will perform his work, Sunjata’s Time (which was commissioned by the Kronos Quartet for their Fifty for the Future project) six times in six different locations in Richmond, Virginia during the month of October. They will be joined by dancer Kevin LaMarr Jones for each performance.

Sunjata’s Time is a 5-movement work dedicated to Sunjata Keita, the warrior prince who founded the great Mali Empire in 1235. Each of the first four movements depicts a character who played a central role in Sunjata’s life, and each is fronted by one of the four instruments of the quartet. The fifth movement brings the quartet together in equality to portray the harmonious and peaceful reign of this great West African emperor who lived nearly eight centuries ago.

Much of what is now known about Sunjata has been passed down through oral history by griots like Fodé Lassana Diabaté. Griot is the French term, but the musicians refer to themselves as jeli, which means “blood”. If you are born into a griot family, you learn how to become a musician and oral historian, almost by osmosis. With this piece, Fodé Lassana Diabaté pays homage not only to Sunjata, but to the proud musical tradition of which he is a part.

So Hot Right Now is a concert series powered by Rosette and presented by First Creatures. Each series highlights the music of one very hot, very alive composer by performing the same program multiple times in various venues throughout Richmond. Some of the concerts are free and some are ticketed. To learn more, or to support this series, please visit https://firstcreatures.com/so-hot-right-now