Collaboration, Contestation, and Transferable Research through Studio Production: Lucy Durán in Conversation with Richard Williams

The SOAS Public Music Research Seminar Series is a valuable forum for ethnomusicology and related fields in London, bringing rising and established scholars to share innovative music research with SOAS audiences.

Abstract

Lucy Durán, SOAS Professor Emerita, is widely known for her work on Mande music, particularly in relation to the kora. In this talk she will focus on what she considers to be her most impactful and important output, the “production” of music albums. Having produced c. 30 albums of music from the Mande world, with many awards including three Grammy nominations, she is currently actively involved in new album production. In evaluations of academic excellence, academia has been slow to give music albums as much weight as the written text (“where are the footnotes?”). But Durán argues that her albums are not only a valid form of academic output, they are also an excellent tool of research in themselves. In addition, albums arguably have great potential to have an impact on the musicians and the musical culture, in diverse ways.

Durán will illustrate her talk with examples from albums she has produced by some of Mali’s most cherished artists, such as (the late) kora player Toumani Diabaté, whose career she launched in 1987 with his solo album Kaira. She will reflect on Toumani’s album Kulanjan with bluesman Taj Mahal, currently being remastered and reissued with new material on UK label Chrysalis (and the only album cited by Barack Obama, when he was campaigning for first presidency). She will also discuss her work with kora player Ballaké Sissoko and ngoni player Bassekou Kouyaté.

Studio production, if done in respectful and well-researched collaboration with the musicians, provides a superb window onto ideas around creativity, repertoire, ownership, and personal style, ideas that, through practice-based methodologies, nuance our understanding of musics of oral tradition.

 

Speaker

Lucy Durán is Professor Emerita at SOAS. She has specialised in the music of West Africa and Cuba, working extensively across academia, journalism, broadcasting, and music production.

She will be in conversation with Richard Williams, Reader in Music and South Asian Studies at SOAS.

To attend

This event will be in person in room G52 and online via Zoom. If you wish to attend online please follow the link at the top of this page.

Image credit: Fey Marin via Unsplash