Pouya Ehsaei, with Sadio Sissokho and Peter Lutek, to Play Small World Centre in April

Pouya Ehsaei from London, UK, joins Juno award-winning artist Sadio Sissokho on kora and vocals with Peter Lutek on reeds for a live set uniting electronics with West African music and avant-garde composition. Ehsaei's significant knowledge and experience in blending electronic music and acoustic instruments will shine through with Lutek and Sissokho as talented collaborators on April 5 at the Small World Centre.

An Iranian-born musician, sound designer, producer and curator, Pouya Ehsaei has released two solo albums There (2014) and RocRast (2020) as well as two studio albums with his band Ariwo. With a eurorack Analog Rtym, Octatrack, a collection of effect pedals and Midas Venice 160 mixer, Ehsaei is constantly "gleaning elusive emotions from a rich, whisked swirl of glistening tones that remain dangerously high in the mix" to produce music.

Montreal-based Sadio Sissokho is a Senegalese kora player, singer, dancer and percussionist from a renowned griot family. He has accompanied many artists, including Alpha Yaya Diallo, Wilfred LeBouthillier and Ouanani with Jean Arsenault.

Toronto-based Peter Lutek frequently uses electronics in performance as a way to extend and modify acoustic sounds. Most of his performing is as a reed instrumentalist specializing in improvised music, though for many years he studied classical bassoon. Lutek plays with Tom Richards' Riverrun, the Avi Granite:6 and Shahab Bradaran's Circle Band.

Experimental Link Series contemplates the Persian-Canadian experience by reinvigorating, re-exploring and re-imagining Persian traditional music within contemporary and cosmopolitan Toronto by inviting different musicians from the diaspora to collaborate and perform together. The series will explore connections between identity, culture, and musical creation.

About Link Music Lab

Link Music Lab is a Toronto-based artist collective whose mandate is to create top-quality multicultural concert productions and innovative recording collaborations. Founded in 2009 by Mahmood "Moudy" Schricker, Link Music Lab employs an ethnomusicological approach to developing concert, recording and artist marketing initiatives. As a premier presenter of a diverse range of Persian music from classical to electronic to fusion, Link Music Lab aims beyond its foundations in Persian music and the cliche of the "Toronto mosaic" to facilitate collaborations that cross-pollinate various cultures in entirely new artistic contexts.

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