At Home with Derek Gripper

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A rare opportunity to experience the magic of a true genius in an intimate home concert setting. Only 60 tickets available.

It took Derek Gripper untold hours of painstaking work to transcribe note-for-note the complex compositions of Malian kora virtuoso Toumani Diabate 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 Diabate 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 Diabate at the Acoustik Festival Bamako, Mali. Derek went on to tour the world continuously for the last three years, playing Carnegie Hall debut in 2016 and his Royal Albert Hall debut to receive his Songlines Award for Best Album Africa and Middle East in 2017. 
 

“It’s hard to imagine a more impressive and passionate rendering of Malian music on classical guitar, particularly from a person who has done it all his own way.” 
— BANNING EYRE, AFROPOP WORLDWIDE
 

“a staggering achievement”— NIGEL WILLIAMSON, SONGLINES MAGAZINE
 

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