African Strings with Abel Selaocoe

South African cellist Abel Selaocoe has established himself as a leading voice in reimagining classical music. Redefining the parameters of the cello, he moves seamlessly across a plethora of genres and styles, from collaborations with world musicians and beatboxers, to concertos and solo performances. He combines virtuosic performance with improvisation, singing and body percussion, and is committed to composing works and curating programmes that highlight the links between Western and non-Western musical traditions, broadening the horizons of classical music to reach a more diverse audience.

Abel Selaocoe is Artistic Partner of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra in the US, Artist Spotlight at the Barbican Centre and Artist-in-Association with both the BBC Singers and BBC National Orchestra of Wales, performing with each throughout the season. He also continues to perform his solo cello concerto Four Spirits widely in 2023/24, including with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra at EFG London Jazz Festival, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Philharmonie Zuidnederland. He also makes his Carnegie Hall debut with Sphinx Virtuosi this season, as well as debuts at Edinburgh International Festival, Caramoor, Vienna Konzerthaus, Luxembourg Philharmonie and Konzerthaus Berlin.

He completed his International Artist Diploma at the Royal Northern College of Music in 2018. In 2021 he was announced as an inaugural Power Up Music Creator participant in the PRS Foundation’s new initiative to address anti-Black racism and racial disparities in the music sector; the same year he received a Paul Hamlyn Foundation award for his compositional work. Abel Selaocoe is an exclusive recording artist with Warner Classics.

Kadialy Kouyate was born into the great line of Kouyate Griot in Southern Senegal; his kora playing and singing, both as a soloist and in a number of ensembles, have been warmly acclaimed. He has performed at many prestigious venues, including the Southbank’s Royal Festival Hall, the O2 Arena, National Theatre, Royal Albert Hall and Clarence House, as well as at halls and festivals across the world, touring to Europe, Australia and North America.

Since his arrival in the UK, he has played a significant part in enriching the London musical scene with his griot legacy. He has taught the kora at SOAS, University of London, and has been involved in countless musical projects both as a collaborator and a session musician. He toured with the RSC’s production of Julius Caesar; other theatre projects include working at the London Globe Theatre on a show called We the People, as well as touring three children’s theatre projects with the renowned Oily Cart. In 2015 he took part in the remaking of the TV series Roots as a musician, cultural consultant and dialect coach. He has released several albums, and makes regular radio and television appearances.

With his band Sound Archive, Kadialy Kouyate draws on his heritage and its traditional songs to create his own mesmerising compositions, leading his band into the West African groove.

His latest album Nemo (meaning ‘Blessings’) was released to rave reviews from the press.

Simo Lagnawi is a Moroccan Gnawa master; this is the traditional music of black slaves who were taken from countries such as Guinea and Sudan to work in North African countries. It is characterised by the playing of the guembri, a camel-skinned three-stringed bass instrument that is played by the lead vocalist of the troupe. The other musicians chant, play krakebs (metal castanets that represent the handcuffs of the slaves) and drums. The music is highly spiritual, ritualised and ceremonial. Combined with incense and colour it is traditionally performed at Lila healing ceremonies that evoke Muslim saints and animistic spirits to induce a state of trance. Simo Lagnawi is keen to promote the music in new contexts, to replicate its trancelike effect at festivals and venues throughout the world.

He arrived in the UK from Rabat in 2008 and has made it his mission to spread the sound of gnawa music through the UK and beyond, with a range of African and other musicians combining their different traditions with his to create a new style of gnawa music. He has performed at venues from museums such as London’s V&A and art galleries to festival stages from Scotland to Dubai, as well as performing his music for live radio and TV sessions.

Simo Lagnawi’s albums include Gnawa London, The Gawa Berber, Salt and, most recently, Africa Soyo. He was a winner of World Music Network’s ‘Battle of the Bands’ and the track ‘Baniyorkoy’ from Gnawa London was included on a compilation album The Rough Guide To The Best African Music You’ve Never Heard.

Richard Ọlátundé Baker was born and raised in the UK of English-Nigerian parents; he grew up listening largely to African music, later developing a strong interest in various experimental and avant-garde genres.

His musical journey began aged 11, as a self-taught guitarist, before later gravitating towards the drums in his early twenties. He was trained by a number of traditional Yoruba talking drum masters, many of whom he’d first encountered on the records of his youth. He also worked with several other African pro-percussionists in the 1990s. His drumming foundations remain firmly rooted in playing frequently at all-night African community events and African theatre in the UK.

In addition, Richard Ọlátundé Baker is an experienced studio engineer and producer, having originally trained at London’s old Matrix Studios network. Here, he gained vital experience, working with a wide array of leading engineers, producers and musicians from around the world.

Today he divides his life between African Drumming and Music Technology, both of which he also teaches. Artists with whom he has worked include Tony Allen, Mulatu Astatke, Seun Kuti, Sting, Mark de Clive-Lowe and Natty, among many others.

Matthew Wadsworth is in demand in the UK and Europe as a soloist and chamber musician and has appeared at many major concert halls and festivals. His many recordings for labels including Channel Classics, Linn Records, Deux-Elles and Wigmore Live have received international critical acclaim. Along with his wife Kate, he runs the Deux-Elles record label; this has allowed him to pursue his interest in sound engineering and audio excellence.

Notable commissions include a Theorbo Concerto written for him by Stephen Goss, which he recorded in 2018 with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra.

He has given concerts at Wigmore Hall, Purcell Room, Sam Wanamaker Playhouse at Shakespeare’s Globe, the Georgian Concert Society in Edinburgh and Metropolitan Museum of Art, as well as at the Bruges, Klara, Lufthansa, York, Bath, Swaledale, Beverley, Warwick, Spitalfields, Holt, North York Moors, Budapest, Vancouver, Ottawa, Montreal Baroque and Innsbruck festivals.

He has also worked as a soloist with the Scottish and Northern Chamber orchestras and as a continuo player with the Academy of Ancient Music, English Touring Opera, Birmingham Opera Company, Independent Opera, The Netherlands Bach Society, I Fagiolini, English Cornett & Sackbut Ensemble and Les Violons du Roy, among others.

Matthew Wadsworth studied lute at the Royal Academy of Music with Nigel North, after which he spent a year at the Royal Conservatory of Music in The Hague.

Simmy Singh is a violinist and composer, born and raised in South Wales to an Indian father and English mother; her ambition is to push the boundaries of classical music and its audiences and to explore creativity and different genres through the violin.

​She co-founded the innovative Manchester Collective; highlights include their 2019 Sirocco tour with cellist Abel Selaocoe and a tour with Poul Høxbro. She is currently trialling as principal second in the Manchester Camerata and was for several years a core member of the Cardiff-based Sinfonia Cymru.

She is also in demand as a cross-genre violinist: she is leader of the Kaleidoscope Orchestra, whose lockdown sessions reached 50,000 subscribers, leader of the Ignition Orchestra, who sold out the Royal Albert Hall for their Garage Classical performance with DJ Spoony, and leader of the Untold Orchestra; she also leads the cross-genre string quartet Amika.

In 2017 she was one of 10 participants for the Brighter Sounds Jazz Director Series, spending a week rehearsing and touring with world renowned jazz artist Chris Potter. The following year she joined her sister Rakhi Singh to develop and perform in Written in Fire – a project devised by electronic artist Vessel. This included a memorised performance of Janáček’s Intimate Letters Quartet, followed by a new work for string quartet, electronics and visuals. Her most recent creative success has come from her all-string rework of Four Tet’s track LA Trance.

Simmy Singh recently embarked on a Masters in Music at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama in Cardiff.