Kalimba Quartet: By Khalil Mounji & Mbemba Diabaté
On 30 October 2026, KaliMba Project brings together the Moroccan Gnawa tradition and Mandingue music from Casamance at De Regentes in The Hague, with a workshop, concert and free jam session.
Gnawa is one of the oldest spiritual musical traditions of Morocco, rooted in Sub-Saharan African heritage. Ritual music, trance, rhythmic percussion and song are all inseparable from it. Khalil Mounji carries that tradition; he plays the guembri, a low-pitched string instrument at the heart of gnawa music. Mbemba Diabaté comes from a griot family, a West African storytelling tradition, and plays kora. Together they search for a meeting point between two continental musical lineages that seem further apart than they actually are.
Workshop: an introduction to Gnawa and its instruments
Before the concert, a workshop takes place in the Ketelhuis of Theatre De Regentes. The musicians explore the background of Gnawa culture and demonstrate how the instruments work and what they mean within that tradition. You can listen to sounds, try them out and ask questions. It is an accessible way to understand the music before the concert begins.
Concert in the main hall of Theatre De Regentes in The Hague
The concert shows how guembri, kora, balafon and percussion relate to each other, and how contemporary sound textures can add colour without diluting the essence. KaliMba Project describes their music as a modern ritual: a route from Casablanca to Casamance, from the past to the present. The duo combines technical mastery with a broadly shared spiritual energy.
Free jam session in the theatre café
Immediately after the concert, the evening moves to the theatre café for a free jam session. This makes it an evening with multiple layers: educational, musical and informal. Whether you have long been interested in African music or are encountering it for the first time, the structure of the evening invites you to go beyond simply listening.
