Artists Performing
Town Hall Seattle and SAMA: Music+Art present Global Rhythms: Omar Sosa & Seckou Keita SUBA Trio featuring Gustavo Ovalles, percussion
Composer-pianist-bandleader Omar Sosa was born in 1965 in Camagüey, Cuba’s largest inland city. At age eight, Omar began studying percussion and marimba at the music conservatory in Camagüey; in Havana, as a teenager, he took up piano at the prestigious Escuela Nacional de Música, and completed his formal education at the Instituto Superior de Arte in Havana.
Among his influences, Omar cites traditional Afro-Cuban music, European classical composers (including Chopin, Bartok, and Satie), Monk, Coltrane, Parker, Oscar Peterson, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, Keith Jarrett, Chucho Valdés, and the pioneering Cuban jazz group Irakere.
Moving in 1993 to Ecuador, Omar immersed himself in the folkloric traditions of Esmeraldas, the northwest coast region whose African heritage includes the distinctive marimba tradition. He relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1995, and soon invigorated the Latin jazz scene with his adventurous writing and percussive style.
Seckou Keita, born in Ziguinchor, Senegal, is a kora player and drummer. He is one of the few champions of the lesser-known kora repertoire from Casamance in southern Senegal. Through his father he is a descendant of the Malian Keita family of kings, and his mother's family, the Cissokhos, are a griot family (hereditary musicians). He launched his international career in 1996 under the guidance of his uncle Solo Cissokho with appearances at Norway's Forde Festival in a successful collaboration with Cuban, Indian and Scandinavian musicians. In the years that followed, Keita relocated to the United Kingdom, while touring regularly in Spain, France, Portugal, Greece and the Czech Republic as well as playing at such festivals as WOMAD and Glastonbury, both as a solo musician, and in collaboration with acclaimed figures like Indian violinist Dr. L. Subramaniam.
Keita developed his work on the kora and with support slots to luminaries like Salif Keita and Youssou N'Dour, solo slots at London's Jazz Café and at Ireland's Sacred Music Festival, and a nomination in 2001 for BBC Radio 3's prestigious World Music Award. Keita formed the Seckou Keita Quartet in 2004, later expanding into the Seckou Keita Quintet with the addition of his sister Binta Susso on vocals.
Based near Nottingham in England, Keita runs drumming and kora workshops in schools, arts centres and festivals, working with organisations such as Music For Change, Creative Partnerships and WOMAD. He is also a regular guest leader for Sewa Beats, a company which offers corporate learning through rhythm and music.
SUBA is a co-production between Omar Sosa, Seckou Keita, OTA Records, Theatr Mwldan, and ARC Music Productions International Ltd and is released worldwide on 22 October 2021 in CD and digital formats on the bendigedig label.
Source: Wikipedia, https://www.seckoukeita.com/omar-sosa-seckou-keita
Event Schedule
Thursday, January 16, 2025 at 7:30-8:30PM (Livestream available)
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Highlights
The Atlantic Ocean separates Cuba and Senegal, the respective birthplaces of piano virtuoso Omar Sosa and kora master Seckou Keita, a distance diminished by their shared ancestral connection to Africa.
Recorded during lockdown and released in October 2021, Sosa and Keita’s second album SUBA is a hymn to hope, to a new dawn of compassion and real change in a post-pandemic world, a visceral reiteration of humanity’s perennial prayer for peace and unity. Joining Omar and Seckou in the studio and for live performances is the inimitable Venezuelan artist Gustavo Ovalles.