Two multi-award winning artists from opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean will come together for what’s set to be a wonderful night of music in Liverpool this November.
The distance that separates Cuba and Senegal – the respective birthplaces of piano virtuoso Omar Sosa and kora maestro Seckou Keita – is diminished by their shared ancestral connection to Africa.
When the pair met in 2012, Seckou loved Omar for his musical spirituality, whilst Omar saw in Seckou a rare ability to collaborate but not lose his identity. Their debut album Transparent Water was hailed as ‘beautiful, rhapsodic…spiritual’ (Songlines) and ‘mesmerising, evocative and sophisticated’ (World Music Central).
Sosa has released over 30 albums during an incredible career that has included nominations for seven Grammy or Latin Grammy awards. Keita is also a multi-award winner, most recently named as the prestigious BBC Radio 2 ‘Folk Musician of the Year’.
Recorded during lockdown and released in October 2021, Sosa and Keita’s second album SUBAis a hymn to hope, to a new dawn of compassion and real change in a post-pandemic world, a visceral reiteration of humanity’s perennial prayer for peace and unity.
Joining Omar and Seckou in Liverpool in November is the inimitable Venezuelan percussionist Gustavo Ovalles.