Tomchess + Salieu Suso

Spiral Music presents acoustic music every Wednesday evening at the base of the Museum’s spiral staircase. Artists who specialize in music from the Himalayas and South Asia are invited to forge a connection between their music and the art in the galleries.

About the Musicians

Tomchess (oud, ney) is a New York City”“based multi-instrumentalist, improviser, and composer who has performed and recorded with some of the most esteemed players in the improvisational scene (Dewey Redman, Butch Morris, Pharoah Sanders, Drew Gress, Ronald Shannon Jackson) as well as Moroccan sintirist Hassan Hakmoun. He has performed at notable venues around the world and in New York City including Lincoln Center, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the United Nations, and the Turkish and Pakistani embassies. He has played on Grammy-nominated recordings and was awarded grants from the Turkish American Society and the Maryland Council for the Arts. In 2012 he was nominated for an Independent Music Award.

Salieu Suso was born into a family of farmers and traditional musicians/historians from Gambia, West Africa, which extends back nearly a thousand years. He was trained to play the twenty-one-stringed kora (West African harp) at the age of eight by his father, Alhaji Musa Makang Suso, a renowned kora player of that region. He is recognized to be a descendant of JaliMady Wulayn Suso, the originator of the kora instrument. Suso graduated from high school in The Gambia and speaks fluent English as well as Mandigo, Fula, Wolof, Sarahuli, and some German. Before settling in the United States in 1989, Suso performed extensively throughout Africa and Europe. He is also the leader of the Jaliya Kafo ensemble and is a leader in the nation’s rapidly growing African music scene. Suso also performs with other groups in the United States.