Bala by Lassana Diabaté

This album is part of a community-engaged research-creation program led collaboratively by the internationally acclaimed musician and virtuoso balafón player Lassana Diabaté and ethnomusicologist Marcia Ostashewski, Director of The Centre for Sound Communities at Cape Breton University. Since 2014, they have been working together on multiple community-engaged research-creation projects facilitated by partnerships with public libraries, and African Nova Scotian and Mi’kmaw community leaders and organizations in Cape Breton and Halifax. These collaborative projects have involved teaching, research, and creative practices that bridge gaps between university and wider community spaces; they have been funded by the Social Science and Humanities Council of Canada; Department of Communities, Culture and Heritage - African Nova Scotian Affairs; Fulbright Canada; MITACS; and CLARI, community-engaged research support based at St. Mary’s University in Halifax. These collective efforts have led to numerous academic publications, workshops, lecture-demonstrations, the production of films, and digital learning resources routinely used in schools and universities.

Fodé Lassana Diabaté, better known as Lassana Diabaté, is an internationally acclaimed musician, virtuoso balafón player, artist-researcher, composer, culture-bearer, and balafón maker, who comes from a well-known griot family of balafón masters in Guinea. He has collaborated with myriad international musicians and across many genres, and has participated in several Grammy-nominated albums.

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