Folktales and Storied Traditions: Troubadours, Griots, and Hakawatis
Early Music Seminar
Booking and details
Get TicketsDates Wed, Feb 10, 2027 at 6pm ET
Venue Virtual - On Zoom
Tickets $10; free for Folger Members and Subscribers
Duration 60 minutes
Folger Consort Artistic Director Robert Eisenstein leads a lively virtual seminar that offers a sneak peek at the music performed in the Folger Consort’s upcoming concert Folktales and Storied Traditions: Troubadours, Griots, and Hakawatis.
About the concert
Explore oral histories, heroic sagas, folk tales, and epic romances across the West African, Arabic, and European musical traditions. In this program, Folger Consort traces the narrative and musical connections between West African djali or griots, preservers of oral histories shared through song; Arabic hakawatis, revered storytellers of heroic sagas and folk tales; and medieval Provençal and French singer-poets. Together, these three musical traditions honor the role of music and storytelling in preserving culture and history, while offering distinct takes from their own cultural perspectives.
Who’s Who
Robert Eisenstein
Robert Eisenstein, Artistic Director (bass viol)
Robert Eisenstein has led over 200 productions and performances with Folger Consort over the past 40 years, including Measure + Dido at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and Napa Valley Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice at Strathmore, The Fairy Queen, and Hildegard Von Bingen’s Ordo Virtutum at the Washington National Cathedral. Recently retired as the Director of the Five College Early Music Program; Music Director for the Five College Opera Project production of Francesca Caccini’s La Liberazione di Ruggiero; Mount Holyoke College faculty emeritus, where he taught music history and performed on the viola de gamba, violin, and medieval fiddle. He is an active participant in Five College Medieval Studies. Recipient of Early Music America’s Thomas Binkley Award for outstanding achievement in performance and scholarship by the director of a college early music ensemble.
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