Virtuoso AKA Trio plays the Petworth Festival - how to get your tickets

Three world renowned virtuosos will once again converge on West Sussex as the AKA Trio plays the Petworth Festival with a date on Saturday, July 16 at 7.30pm at St Mary’s Church – five years after their first visit in 2017.
AKA @Anna KunstAKA @Anna Kunst
AKA @Anna Kunst

The trio brings together Italian guitarist and composer Antonio Forcione; Seckou Keita, from Senegal, one of the world’s foremost kora players; and Brazilian percussionist and composer Adriano Adewale.

“I have been touring constantly for 40 years,” Antonio says.

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“I tour all the time and I've got to that age where I think ‘Did I play here?’ I have to ask the audience whether I've been there before, and they tell me how many times I've been there before!”

The more important thing is that they will be offering something very special indeed.

“Adriano has been a part of my quartet for a long time. I'd heard his percussion and he was really good and I heard it was this Brazilian guy and he was introduced to me and we just talked all night long. We really became like brothers and we have played together in many countries but then somebody pointed out Seckou, knowing the love of rhythm that I had. I went to see him play in London and I just completely loved what he was doing and it felt just like a dream to put the three of us together.

“I've done a lot of Edinburgh Fringe festivals. When I first discovered the Edinburgh Fringe I discovered a huge learning platform for me. It was like this place where anything could happen. It was open to dance and music and comedy and everything. I just had no idea when I first went there in 1991 but when I entered the door I just loved it. And I just suggested to Seckou and Adriano that I'd like to take us as a trio to Edinburgh just to see what the audience reaction was. We went there and we had an audience of 800 people for five nights. It was a complete sell-out. It was a huge success, and people were asking us if we had an album but we didn't even have any management.

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“And then we shot off in all different directions and everybody dealt with their own lives. It was not until 2016 or 2017 that we decided to get management and we did an album. We recorded the album Joy which was released in 2019.”

The album was called Joy simply because that's what it is to work together: “We are like three kids. It is just amazing the way that we can start laughing like crazy together. We are three leaders with our own musical careers but when we come together we are like three children. We have talked so much about childhoods and we feel that there's just so much closeness. And we just laugh a lot! There's a lot of synergy in this trio and we also respect each other which is really important.

“In all my entire career I have never sat down with other people to compose. I've always felt it was an individual process but this is the exception. We just carry on playing or we just jam for a couple of hours and that's why the album was called Joy, the great joy of being together.”

Tickets from the Petworth Festival.