UPDATE: Now playing Sunday (Sept 3) at 5pm! Sona Jobarteh – the first female virtuoso performer of traditional West African instrument the kora – plays the free Dandelion Festival at the Northern Meeting Park in Inverness and tells her story here
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On Friday, the free three-day Dandelion Festival comes to the Northern Meeting Park in Inverness – and on the bill on Sunday afternoon at 5pm will be Sona Jobarteh as both Inverness and the musician meet each other for the first time!
Sona is a musician and composer of Gambian heritage whose main instrument is the kora. The word comes from the Manding languages of West Africa where the 22-stringed instrument – a mix of a lute and harp in sound for anyone who hasn’t heard it before – is a traditional art among “griot” families.
Sona is the first professional virtuoso female kora player to come from any of the West African dynasties. Her second album Nna Taariko will be out on September 23, and as well as playing music, Sona also composes, is an educator and an activist and lecturer.
In 2015, Sona set up The Gambia Academy, the first institution in The Gambia to educate young Africans in their culture, traditions, history, seamlessly alongside their everyday academic education.
In 2019, her composition, Innovation Through Preservation was premiered in London at the South Bank’s Purcell Room, in London and was aired on the BBC. The piece was praised in The Observer newspaper as uniting West African and Western Classical sounds “…to exuberant and poetic effect.”
Sona who attended the Royal College of Music where she studied cello, piano and harpsichord, then attended the Purcell School of Music to study composition. And Sona also has a degree from the SOAS (School Of Oriental and African Studies) at the University of London.
Is the kora at the core of it all, still?
"It’s not either or it is all of those things and they all occupy their own spaces. They don’t cross over much.
"Of course, the kora is my instrument and is the access point and how you grow.
"It is all manifestations of myself in music in order to express myself within that musical realm.
"The genre of music that the kora is part of is as important, whether I am composing, singing, writing or playing on guitar – or whatever instruments I touch.
"That mandink style is at my core, is my everything that you will find at the centre of it."
From a griot family, Sona’s father Sanjally and her brother Tunde Jegede are both kora players – as is her cousin Toumani Diabaté.
Now, Sona's son Sidiki is also following the family tradition.
Sona said: "He is now reaching a level where he is getting recognition in his own right.
"He has had – up until this point – an amazing backdrop where he has been able to travel the world and he has been able to perform and learn, basically from the musicians I am around who are top of their field.
"So he has been around people who are the best from a young age, also, from the years of studying in the Gambia at my academy, he has been learning and picking up the instruments there.
"And he is also exposed to my family and to my father and learning from him directly and from a number of top players in the country.
"It has been a very rich experience up to now and he is manifesting his abilities now as a player.
"So it is already going on and I already see that journey starting to pan out!"
It was Sona's brother Tunde who began to teach her as a youngster, though the art usually goes through the male line.
He also visited Gambia regularly with Sona when she was young.
What are her memories of Gambia and how music is regarded and played there?
"The strongest memories of my younger years in Gambia was not so much about music, it was more just family, my friends that I had as a child.
"And when I was young, I was into football, so I used to play football all the time!
"Of course music was around – and you absorb it from hearing it and listening – and though I was always encouraged to be in it, and take part in it, I was taken by the life of a young person in the Gambia.
"Not sitting down and practising music for hours!
"And what is important is the aural training – by being around music all the time.
"As I grew older I actively wanted to be part of the music more.
"Music is an essential part of life in pretty much every African country.
"In a society where the Manding is strong, music is very important in terms of carrying the cultural weight and identity of that people, their history.
"So it is regarded in the context of Creole families as an essential part of your identity and fulfilling your role in society, following the line of your family and continuing to keep that tradition alive."
Sona said: “I was very close to my older brother Tunde and he was in every way a mentor and a role model growing up in my early years. So from every direction it was music and so I guess in some way it might not be so surprising that I ended up in music, but not everybody does.”
Becoming the first professional female player, Sona explains how it happened in two ways.
“It is a male tradition, even now. Tunde decided to teach me – without that it wouldn’t have happened. Secondly, society was not openly going to accept me as a female. This music is very culturally rooted and grounded.
"The events and ceremonies this music plays a vital role in, I could not do that. That is partly because of me, I didn’t feel comfortable with putting myself in that position, to be that open to criticism – and my studies were always private.
"But when I thought I was ready to come into the public sphere, I did it in a space that didn’t carry cultural meaning. That was being able to get up on stage in a concert venue with an audience that is culturally neutral.
"It is hard to come with your opinions and your prejudice to that space in the way you would come to an inner space that is dominated by those cultural overtones, ceremonies that have cultural and religious meaning.
"Partly, the time also gave me a window to come through, let’s say unlike for the two generations before. I’m not trying to push this in a domain that would be uncomfortable.
"Once one can dominate a safe space, there is the hope and the possibility that one can go forward and infiltrate into those spaces that are culturally and religiously weighted.
“That is something that will start to happen and as I have now been able to set this page and show that it is possible to do in a stage context and to own that, I very much hope that my successors, whoever they are, who come after me now, women, will be able to take that to the next step.
"I think that is something very possible now. The door has at least been unlocked.”
Sona plans to share music from her imminent new album Nna Taariko, a belated follow-up to her debut Fasiya, when she plays at the Dandelion Festival on Saturday (Sept 3).
"The main thing coming up for me later in the year is my new album out on September 23.
"That is a major milestone as the last one came out 11 years ago which is crazy, but true!"
Sona – NOW SUNDAY SEPT 3 at 5pmin the Northern Meeting Park. More and the link to pre-order the new album: sonajobarteh.com
Full music line-up for Saturday and Sunday's Dandelion Festival is below:
SATURDAY
Dandelion Stage:
1pm Cala
2.25pm Scott Matthews
6.05 Kafaya and Elaha Soroor
8.05pm Ali Hutton And Ross Ainslie Trio
Pavilion Of Perpetual Light Stage:
1.40pm Acibeira
3.15pm Dreamers' Circus
7.05pm Spell Songs
9.05pm Tank And The Bangas
SUNDAY
Pavilion Of Perpetual Light Stage:
1.30pm Acibeira
3.15pm Hannah Rarity
5pm Sona Jobarteh
Dandelion Stage:
2.20pm Goitse
4.05pm Dallahan.
There are also lots of other activities – including talks and workshops about growing, gardens and sustainability – at the Dandelion Festival. Find out more here and scroll down for details on the Inverness festival event: https://dandelion.scot/programme/festivals/
