Cambridge, MA.... Acclaimed Senegalese master drummer Lamine Touré will be featured in a free performance by Massachusetts Institute of Technology student Melissa Edoh and drummers from the MIT community on Friday, January 31 at 8pm at MIT’s Killian Hall (160 Memorial Drive, Cambridge). Information: (617) 253-8089.

The performance is a culmination of a class on complex Senegalese rhythms led by Edoh and members of MIT Rambax, MIT's Senegalese drumming ensemble. Also performing is Assistant Professor Patricia Tang, an ethnomusicologist specializing in West African music, who leads MIT Rambax.

Born in 1973, Lamine Touré comes from a long line of griots, a caste of musicians and oral historians among the Wolof people of Senegal. He received his early training as part of his family’s drum troupe and formed his first group while still a teenager. After playing with various groups, he joined Alioune Mbaye Nder et le Setsima Group in 1997 and has toured extensively in Senegal and throughout Europe and North America. Known for his ability to fuse traditional rhythms with jazz, rock and Afro-pop, Touré showcases his musical talent and versatility on a wide range of percussion instruments, from sabar and djembé to tama (talking drum), as well as in taasu (rhythmic poetry similar to rap). Touré is currently an artist-in-residence at MIT.

Melissa Edoh, who grew up in Togo and Zimbabwe, is an MIT undergraduate studying political science and African studies at MIT. She was the recipient of a List Foundation Fellowship at MIT, a program which annually awards up to $5,000 annually to two MIT students to support the year-long pursuit of a project in the performing, visual or literary arts. The program includes a mentorship program, through which she studied sabar drumming with Touré and spent last summer in Senegal for intensive study.

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