After receiving an invite to attend the annual Lake of Stars festival, Christopher Conder heads to Malawi, finding local musicians en route to international stardom and others proudly fulfilling roles as social historians and bearers of their nation’s richest traditions
Laudan Nooshin reports on the revival of Iranian classical music since 1979 and Simon Broughton takes the pulse of the folk and pop scenes
Huw Hennessy sits down with a Scottish smallpipes innovator who has been patiently biding his time before releasing his first solo album
The Kurdish singer Aynur Doğan has released her first solo album while living in exile in the Netherlands. She tells Robert Rigney her reasons for leaving Turkey and her mission to keep Kurdish songs alive
Kings Place’s new artist-in-residence talks about the programme she’s curated for Scotland Unwrapped, involving poetry, birdsong, folklore and choral euphoria
David Green visits Rwanda to discover how traditional instruments accompany age-old tales of morality, revenge and discipline, as well as animal conservation. ‘We, the people of Rwanda, will never betray the gorillas again’, he hears… Photos by David Green
In Slovakia, one of the most distinctive instruments is the fujara. Simon Broughton talks to one of its current players, Ivan Bobot
Laudan Nooshin reports on the revival of Iranian classical music since 1979 and Simon Broughton takes the pulse of the folk and pop scenes
The recent arrest of Sidiki Diabaté has shocked the music community and highlighted issues of domestic violence towards women in Mali
A Songlines playlist for Apple Music exploring the music of musicians who left their home countries for one reason or another.
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