Musicians For Musicians (MFM) Presents: “Music Is Essential” ZOOM Talk Event #7 with MFM Members Banning Eyre and Sylvain Leroux Speaking on Sylvain’s Music Activism and about His Non-Profit Fula Flute Ecole (School) in Conakry, Guinea (Africa)

Date: Friday, November 18, 2022
Time: 5pm to 6:30pm (ET)
Venue:  ZOOM
Ticket: free

Please register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZwucO2trzMqE9xEa3ATnmpqciGYurChJ1yp

Webinar description

The discussion will touch on the opportunities music education projects like this present: supporting the transfer of traditional culture and creating opportunities for musicians in Africa. We’ll also discuss the ethical issues involved. Expect a lively exchange and a brief live performance as well. 

About Banning Eyre

Banning Eyre is an author, guitarist, photographer, and Senior Producer for the Peabody Award-winning public radio series Afropop Worldwide. His work has taken him to over 25 African countries to research local music. Eyre has produced over 180 Afropop episodes including in-depth coverage of Mali, Congo, Egypt, Ghana, Lebanon, Madagascar and Nigeria. He comments on world music for NPR’s All Things Considered. In May, 2015, Duke University Press published his fourth book, Lion Songs: Thomas Mapfumo and the Music That Made Zimbabwe, which won the 2016 Society for Ethnomusicology African Music Section Kwabena Nketia Book Prize. His previous books are Afropop! An Illustrated Guide, In Griot Time: An American Guitarist in Mali, and Guitar Atlas Africa, a book of introductory lessons in African guitar styles. He also co-produced the 2004 film Festival in the Desert: The Tent Sessions, filmed in location in Essakane, Mali. He edits and contributes to www.afropop.org, and hosts www.banningeyre.com, the home of his independent label Lion Songs Records.

About Sylvain Leroux

Sylvain Leroux is a notable player of the Fula flute who brought traditional West African music to Zankel Hall with his Fula Flute Ensemble and curated the Griot Summit series that featured 25 New York City area griots from five countries. He was noted in performances and recordings with, among others, Billy Martin, Emeline Michel, Adam Rudolph, Karl Berger, and Hassan Hakmoun as well as with many Guinean stars (Sekouba Kandia Kouyate, Mbady Kouyate, Lama Sidibe, Missia Saran Diabate, Abdoulaye Diabate…).

Maker and seller of flutes around the world, he invented and patented the “chromatic tambin” that brought the traditional instrument into full chromatic functionality. This led him to initiate l’Ecole Fula Flute, a music literacy project in Guinea, an effort that contributed to a revival of the instrument in Guinea and seveal excellent young artists have emerged from the program.

His 2002 cult record Fula Flute stimulated a worldwide interest in the instrument; and his 2012 album Quatuor Creole was hailed by critics as “a perfect contemporary music release.”