The stellar quartet featuring Ballaké Sissoko (kora), Vincent Segal (cello), Vincent Peirani (accordion) and Émile Parisien (sax), channel a multitude of influences to irresistible effect. 

Malian musical royalty Ballaké Sissoko, A laureate of the Aga Khan Music Awards 2019, has spent many years making records with French cellist Vincent Segal that bring together Manding and European chamber traditions. Meanwhile, Émile Parisien and Vincent Peirani have worked together as a saxophone and accordion duo somewhere in the hinterlands of jazz and folk. In the new album Les Egarés (2023) meaning ‘those who have gone astray’, the two pairs combine and recombine in the art of cross-fertilising sounds and transcending genres. 

Les Egarés reminds us of the rebelliousness that can be found in a spirit of concord and the extent to which the art of playing together with such fine intelligence can generate an extremely subtle way of lighting a fuse. In Les Egarés, they succeed in reordering the musical landscape to uncover lines of escape of a hitherto unheard beauty. 

Ballaké Sissoko (kora)

Vincent Segal (cello) 

Vincent Peirani (accordion) 

Émile Parisien (sax)

Opening the evening is Mongolian jazz singer Enji. With her one-off sound and delicate, dexterous vocals, Enji has risen to fame for her "elegant and powerful twist on traditional Mongolian music" (Guardian). On her latest album Sonor, out on the Squama label, the Mongolian singer explores questions of identity and belonging through metaphoric language, vigilant and always hopeful. Musically, like its predecessors, Ursgal and Ulaan, Sonor sits somewhere between jazz and folk, without being clearly confined to a single genre.