Banjo picker Bela Fleck brings “The Africa Project” to GSU’s Rialto Theatre this Saturday, March 6. Fleck starred in 2008’s Throw Down Your Heart, traveling Africa in search of fellow stringed-gourd enthusiasts, and has brought several of his new friends on tour. The film will screen (for free!) this Thurday, March 4, also at the Rialto. Most exciting of the featured performers is perhaps Mali’s Bassekou Kouyate, master of the stringed ngoni, a West African stringed instrument from the banjo family tree. Kouyate performs with his band, Ngoni Bo.

For further reading on West African music and stringed instruments, see my Polyrhythmiques article on Ali Farka Toure and Toumani Diabate’s latest album.