String Theory: The New Music of Global Fusion
Cello, Kora, Sitar, Koto, Harp, Pipa, Oud, Charango, Banjo, Qanun, Cuatro, Violin . . .
I remember the moment. It was late May of 2016, and Ryan and I were watching the latest episode of Later... with Jools Holland, a British show that has introduced us to more of our favorite new music than just about any other source. Jools jubilantly announced two musicians we had never heard before, French cellist Vincent Ségal and Malian musician Ballaké Sissoko (a griot and maestro of the kora — a 21-string instrument from West Africa combining aspects of the harp and the lute). They played an instrumental piece. No words. Just two very different string instruments perfectly played in tandem by two master musicians. Neither of us had ever heard this combination of strings before.
Suddenly, we both froze. Our jaws dropped as our ears and hearts and minds opened. The sheer unadulterated beauty of what we were experiencing was physically and emotionally shocking, staggering, sublime. This was the definition of aesthetic arrest. When two string instruments from two different cultures harmonize in this way, something magical happens. And I’ve been seeking out new music from around the globe to recapture that experience ever since.
Fortunately, I haven’t been disappointed. There is a joyful abundance of incredibly talented musicians, from a wide variety of cultural traditions, joining forces with their peers to create a diverse and exciting array of gorgeous and scintillating harmonies that simply didn’t exist before. There’s not really a specific “genre” for this glorious fusion of strings, though many of these musicians are often connected to the spheres of classical music and so-called “world music” (apparently a problematic term for some, though I don’t see how the alternative term — “global music” — is semantically different in any meaningful way). Regardless of how this music is labeled by others, for anyone like me who is captivated by these sounds, there is an embarrassment of riches out there.
Recent albums have featured dazzling combinations of string instruments featuring everything from the aforementioned cello and kora to the Indian sitar, the Japanese koto, the Celtic harp, the Peruvian charango, the West African ngoni, the Mexican arpa jarocha, the Persian kamancheh, the Ukrainian bandura, the Venezuelan cuatro, the Cretan lyra, the Spanish guitar, the African-American banjo, the Appalachian dulcimer, the Kurdish tanbur, the Italian mandolin, the Greek bouzouki, the Middle Eastern oud and qanun, the Chinese pipa and guzheng and erhu, and of course the violin, viola and double bass. And that’s just the tip of a very deep musical iceberg!
Deep Dive Playlists!
The only way to truly appreciate this music is to hear it for yourself! Below are four deep dive playlists introducing the wonders of global string fusion:
Playlist #1 — String Theory: Global Fusion Duets
For me, this music starts with the kora. The first five tracks of this playlist pair the West African kora with the cello, the Celtic harp, the Chinese pipa, the Persian kamancheh and the classical guitar. Other instruments on this playlist include the violin, koto, oud, tanbur, banjo, bandura, guzheng, mandolin, cuatro and sitar. This playlist also includes a track from the earliest example I could find from this hybrid of musical styles: West Meets East (recorded in 1966 and released in 1967), which features the meeting of two legendary musicians — sitar virtuoso Ravi Shankar and classical violinist Yehudi Menuhin. The combination was dynamic, magnetic, and something genuinely new. The album even went on to win the 1967 Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance (making Shankar the first artist from Asia to ever win a Grammy in any category).
Playlist #2 — String Theory: Global Fusion Ensembles
The first playlist focuses on duets between two string instruments, while this playlist shows what an even larger combination of cross-cultural strings can do. There are so many different instruments and cultures represented on this playlist that it would be almost impossible to list them all here. That said, two ensembles deserve special mention: the Silk Road Ensemble (which we recently discussed in a podcast here), founded by acclaimed cellist Yo-Yo Ma (who in my humble opinion is one of the greatest living musicians on the planet), and Kronos Quartet, the classical string quartet whose eclectic transnational and genre-busting collaborations have been electrifying the classical world for decades. They are joined by an auditory feast of trios, quartets, collaborations and larger ensembles (occasionally accompanied by percussion, at times alongside an entire symphony orchestra) who all represent a musical world without borders.
Playlist #3 — String Theory: Back to Bach
It all goes back to Bach. I’m fascinated by how many musicians from the previous two playlists have all recorded pieces composed by or inspired by Johann Sebastian Bach. This makes sense for many of the classical musicians, but it’s also interesting how many ingenious ways Bach can be reimagined, reinterpreted and rearranged for different instruments, genres and musical styles from around the globe. In the second track, “Bach to Baïsso,” Catrin Finch and Seckou Keita seamlessly blend a passage from Bach’s Goldberg Variations with an ancient, traditional Senegalese melody passed down through Keita’s griot lineage. The final track on the playlist returns us to basic Bach: Yo-Yo Ma, performing solo, from his divine 2018 album — Six Evolutions – Bach: Cello Suites, which is possibly the most perfect classical recording I’ve ever heard.
Playlist #4 — String Theory: Genre Fusion (Rock, Pop & Jazz)
This one is perhaps a bit of a deviation from the previous examples, but I wanted to end on a playful note. String musicians, particularly string quartets, have long been at the forefront of fusing musical genres that the gatekeepers would like to keep separate. Since the success of Bridgerton, everyone can hear the Vitamin String Quartet playing pop songs from the series’ soundtrack, but it wasn’t always this way. To me the catalyst was in 1986, when Kronos Quartet released a highly acclaimed self-titled album. And no one in the classical music world was prepared for the final track — a defiant yet celebratory version of Jimi Hendrix’s “Purple Haze” arranged for classical string quartet. This playlist begins with that infamous track, and is followed by a variety of musicians and ensembles performing string interpretations and arrangements of popular songs: everything from the Beatles to David Bowie to Bob Marley, Stevie Wonder to Nirvana to Portishead, Sigur Rós to Lizzo to Dua Lipa! I’ve also included some classic jazz songs (by Duke Ellington & Billy Strayhorn, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk) as interpreted via strings.
Is there a better metaphor for this interconnected globe than strings? Aren’t we all linked, entwined, interwoven with one another by a myriad of invisible strings?
As Leslie Feinberg once said: “My right to be me is tied with a thousand threads to your right to be you.”
Wow! I feel like I just opened a gift!