Live: Au Tour de Cordes (Saint-Louis, Senegal, October 31–November 2)

The sound of the kora is soft and deep, the strings resonating through a large gourd. Ablaye Cissoko is playing gorgeous melodies over a rippling accompaniment on West Africa’s most sublime instrument. He’s playing with Kiya Tabassian, from Iran, who accompanies on the setar, his lute’s small belly serving to focus the sound produced. Cissoko and Tabassian are core members of the group Constantinople, who should have been accompanied here by percussionist Patrick Graham, but due to flight delays, he didn’t make it from Canada in time. But the duo are magnificent, trading melodies in a wonderfully organic way.

This was the fifth edition of Au Tour des Cordes – the festival’s name translating as ‘Around Strings’ or ‘The Turn of Strings’ – held in Senegal’s Saint-Louis, the charming old colonial capital of French West Africa, around a four-hour drive north of Dakar. “The idea is to offer a space where string instruments from around the world can meet, converse and unite in an atmosphere that’s both human and artistic,” says Cissoko, who, alongside performing, is the event’s curator. “Saint-Louis is full of history, and the idea is to show the world from the perspective of here. Throughout history, strings tie people and countries together.”

Ablaye Cissoko was born in Kolda, Casamance in the south of Senegal, where most of the population is Mandé, for whom the kora is endemic, as it is in the Gambia, Guinea and Mali. He started playing the instrument aged eight, becoming serious at 12. His family were invited to perform a family concert at Saint-Louis’ French Institute, and he moved to the city about 14 years ago. It was a mission to get the kora better known in the north of the country: “Although our national anthem says ‘play the kora and hit the balafons’, many people in the north of Senegal don’t know the kora. I’m trying to change that.”

The festival opened with a performance by 12 pupils who attend the kora school Cissoko founded in Saint-Louis eight years ago. It was more symbolic than musical. Curiously, a dozen koras playing unamplified is actually less impressive than one, but they looked great.

Taking place at various schools and the French Institute, the festival included string musicians and other instrumentalists from around the world. Telli Turnalar are a female quartet playing Kurdish and Turkish music on various types of saz, and there was an appearance from the remarkable French-Syrian flautist Naïssam Jalal, whose inclusion on the bill must surely have been due to her captivating cello accompanist, Lina Belaid.

Another highlight was Moroccan gimbri player Mehdi Qamoum. Previously a member of the excellent Ouled Bambara group, he now plays his own shows attended by percussionists and four dynamic Gnawa dancers. Despite his nickname of ‘Medicaments’, there wasn’t any deep, healing element in the music Qamoum played. Still, the metal clappers and groovy gimbri playing – his electrified instrument bringing a funky buzz to the strings – made for an invigorating set.

The finale was South African singer Nomfusi, a total bundle of energy, though aside from her vocals, there were few distinctly South African elements to her music. What Au Tour des Cordes does brilliantly is simply bring people together in a beautiful place to taste a wonderful diversity of music.