Loreena McKennitt Cancels Fez Festival Performance.

“I’m facing a grave family emergency and being away from home at this time is not an option,” - Loreena McKennitt

McKennitt out of the Fez festival

The View from Fez has managed to confirm this evening that Loreena McKennitt has been forced to cancel the opening concert of her upcoming Mediterranean tour.

She will be unable to participate in the Festival of World Sacred Music in Fez, where she was scheduled to give the closing night concert.

While it was difficult for us to find confirmation from within the Festival, Loreena herself had this to say:

“I’m facing a grave family emergency and being away from home at this time is not an option,” the Stratford, Ontario-based singer said. “It is most difficult to make this unprecedented decision to cancel a concert so close to its date. It’s my greatest hope that I will be able to play this prestigious festival — I’ve been aware of it for so many years — in the future.”

This is the third programme change in the week long-festival and such cancellations would normally make it very difficult for the organisers to find replacements at such short notice.

However, The View from Fez has learned that the replacement has been found and is an exceptional one. It is expected that the Festival will announce it tomorrow (Wednesday) and that it will be Toumani Diabaté the traditional kora player from Mali.

Diabaté into the festival

This is a real win for the festival and hopefully silence those who felt that McKennitt was not a particularly "spiritual" choice. Toumani Diabaté is one the most brilliant players of the kora (a 21 string harp lute from West Africa).

He was born in 1965 in Bamako into a great kora playing family.His father, the late Sidiki Diabaté, was known throughout West Africa as the king of the kora. Sidiki Diabaté raised the instrument from being a simple djeli accompaniment instrument to the rank of solo performer.

Toumani Diabaté began his apprentice ship on the kora at the age of five and made his first public performance eight years later with the Koulikoro Ensemble at the Mali Biennale.

After winning the prize at that performance for Best Traditional Orchestra, he was invited to join Mali's National Ensemble. Toumani toured Gabon and France in 1983, accompanying the great female singer Kandia Kouyaté

In 1987 (then just 21 years old), Toumani broke into the international concert scene with his highly acclaimed album Kaira, still one of the best-selling solo kora albums. Toumani's success as soloist was immediate. He toured Europe, giving fifty concerts in Great Britain alone in 1988.

Toumani has taken the kora to new heights, particularly in his two successful collaborations (Songhai and Songhai 2) with Nuevo Flamenco stars Ketama and bassist Danny Thompson. Songhai was a combination of Malian kora and flamenco, supported by a jazz bass line. Although Toumani is largely self taught, the aggressive improvisatory style pioneered by his father is strikingly evident in Toumani's own unique and inimitable style of playing which is intensely melodic.

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