Derek Gripper

Derek Gripper is a South African classical guitarist, born in Cape Town in 1977, known for transcribing West African music written for the 21-string kora onto a six-string guitar. He began on the violin at six and studied at the South African College of Music at the University of Cape Town before travelling to southern India to learn Carnatic music. In 2009 he started on Malian repertoire and found that techniques taken from the Renaissance vihuela let him play Toumani Diabaté's compositions without omitting any of the original notes. Banning Eyre described the resulting album, One Night on Earth, as "astounding, not just for its technical brilliance, but its musicality". He met Ballaké Sissoko in Paris in 2022, and the two have since improvised together across dozens of concerts.