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Cora Connection is a service of
copyright © 2003 all rights reserved
Cora Connection's web master David Gilden first heard the kora in 1978 at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC. At the time, he was studying piano and jazz composition at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. After graduating from Berklee in 1980, he turned to the kora, becoming the first American student of Gambian griots Dembo Konte and Malamini Jobarteh. Over the next 10 years, Gilden continued his studies, working from recordings and with the help of professor Roderic Knight of Oberlin College. In 1989, Gilden began making yearly winter excursions to West Africa to study kora. Initially, he visited the Gambia and worked with the griots there. Initially, he visited the Gambia, and then in 1995 on his fifth of nine trips so far, he traveled to Bamako, Mali, where he lived at the home master guitarist Djelimady Tounkara. During this three-month stay, Gilden studied with kora virtuoso Toumani Diabate, gave a concert ORTM (Malian national television), and honored that first kora player he heard back in 1978, Batourou Sekou Kouyaté. (Cora Connection went on-line after Gilden returned from this Malian musical adventure -- spring of '95 )
Gilden has released several recordings that have been featured on NPR and on college radio stations throughout North America. He has even been interviewed for Leo Sarkisian's popular Voice of America program Music Time in Africa (broadcast over short-wave radio). Both on his own and with his group Cora Connection, Gilden has performed at New England area festivals, clubs and cultural events. Cora Connection has introduced West Africa and its rich musical traditions at New England area schools and colleges. Now relocated in the Dallas-Forth Worth, Texas area, Cora Connection hopes to continue on this path.
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copyright © 2003 all rights reserved