Derek Gripper
We appreciate your help!
2019
PM
MEL LEHAN HALL AT ST. JAMES i
3214 West 10th Ave, Kitsilano
Accessible 
All ages
This event has already taken place.
Please note that regular discounts including Parcels O'Rogues are not available for this event.
It took Derek Gripper untold hours of painstaking work to transcribe note-for-note the complex compositions of Malian kora player Toumani Diabaté and find a way of playing them on classical six-string guitar. The results appeared on his ninth album, One Night on Earth, marking a meeting point of the written tradition of Western classical music and the oral tradition of the West African griots.
Critical acclaim was quick to follow. Classical guitar legend John Williams said he thought it was “absolutely impossible until I heard Derek Gripper do it”. Toumani Diabaté himself asked for confirmation that it was indeed just one person playing one guitar. Both immediately invited Derek to collaborate with them, Williams at three different concerts in London, and Diabaté at the Acoustik Festival Bamako, Mali.
Derek continues his inspired interpretations of West African composers on his latest album, Libraries on Fire which won a Songlines Award for Best African and Middle Eastern Album for 2017.
Derek's next releases are a recording of Bach's solo violin works, transcribed for guitar, a new record of African songs and a duo record with cellist Mike Block.
What They’re Saying …
“Gripper has cracked it…his playing has a depthless beauty, which does full justice to the complexity of Toumani’s compositions. To do so without any hint of the music being dumbed down is a staggering achievement on solo guitar.” - Nigel Williamson, Songlines Magazine
“More than a labour of love, Gripper has brought a new purity to the dream-like improvisatory nature of these compositions. My recording of the year, so far!” - Tim Panting, Classical Guitar Magazine
”The result is astounding, not just for its technical brilliance, but its musicality. Gripper executes these pieces with the precision and attention to detail one might expect from a great classical musician…It’s hard to imagine a more impressive and passionate rendering of Malian music on classical guitar.” - Banning Eyre, Afropop Worldwide
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