Concerto for Sokou

The aim of this project is to promote the Soku (traditional West African violin), to help people discover or rediscover this little-known, sometimes discredited and disappearing instrument. This project also aims to confront Mandingo and Peuhl music with the expression and writing of jazz music. Through this confrontation between the oral and the written, this project aims to find bridges between these two musics. The repertoire of this project will give rise to a timbral exploration of the so-called “classical” string instruments (violin, cello and double bass) and of one of their West African counterparts, the Soku.

The confrontation of these organically similar instruments will result in musical pieces with original textures. On the other hand, a research and treatment of classical instruments, augmented with small utensils (pliers, sticks, picks, gelatins, Aluminium, Patafix, plectrums….), will be carried out so that these instruments can take charge of part of the rhythm in the absence of a percussive instrument.

In the continuity of the universes developed by Clément Janinet in O.U.R.S and La Litanie des Cimes, the repetition of motifs from American minimalist music (Steve Reich, John Adams….) will intersect with other repetitive motifs from Mandingue music, in order to explore its forms of trance.

Due to the Covid 19 epidemic and the political situation in Mali, the first stage of the project, which was to take place in Mali, has been abandoned. The idea is to work at a distance with Adama Sidibe to prepare this creation as well as possible. This will be followed by a writing process based on the recordings made by Adama Traoré in Bamako.