Playing Ali

“What [Derek Gripper] is doing in his life with educational and other projects is inspiring, and to be honest, I think it is where the guitar should be going.”

— JOHN WILLIAMS IN CLASSICAL GUITAR MAGAZINE UK

It took Derek Gripper untold hours of painstaking work to transcribe note-for-note the complex compositions of Malian kora player Toumani Diabaté and find a way of playing them on six-string guitar. The results appeared on his ninth album, “One Night on Earth.” The album created an unprecedented meeting point between the written tradition of Western classical music and the oral tradition of the West African griots.

Critical acclaim was quick to follow. Classical guitar legend John Williams said he thought it was “absolutely impossible until I heard Derek Gripper do it.” Toumani Diabaté himself asked for confirmation that it was indeed just one person playing one guitar. Both invited Derek to collaborate with them: Derek performed with Williams in London’s Shakespeare’s Globe and King’s Place, and with Diabaté and his Symmetric Orchestra at the Acoustik Festival Bamako, Mali. He also played with Trio da Kali at Carnegie Hall and won a Songlines Award for the best album in Africa and the Middle East. Derek tours regularly in the USA, Canada, Britain, Europe, Zimbabwe, Swaziland, Namibia, Australia, Malaysia, India and Mali.

Derek is trained as a Montessori teacher, has been the Head of Classical Guitar at the University of Cape Town, has taught workshops in African Guitar, his unique Montessori Method and even given up guitar to become a yoga teacher (that's all over now he promises).