The music on offer from the Schulich Community invites you to travel through space and time and around the world. You won’t just want this music in your playlists, you’ll want them on repeat.
Due West – Althea SullyCole (Chaco World Music)
Released July 11, 2025
Due West is the debut album by multi-instrumentalist Althea SullyCole, professor of ethnomusicology at the Schulich School of Music. The album is the manifestation of fourteen years of dedication studying the kora, a twenty-one stringed harp from the Mandé region of West Africa, and reflects her extensive ethnomusicological work across three continents—Africa, Europe, and North America.
Rooted in the same deep inquiry that defines her academic research, Due West draws on her time in Senegal, The Gambia, and Mali, where she engaged with griots and oral traditions, and her scholarly investigations into the colonial-era circulation of Mandé musical instruments. Through tracks like “Alalake” and “Middle Passage” SullyCole traverses the Black Atlantic, artfully weaving together her experience, creativity and ingenuity as a storyteller, scholar, and musician.
Learn more about Althea and her research in our In Conversation
Listen to the album where you stream music or on bandcamp.
Related links: Althea’s website
Mozart String Duos – Catherine Cosbey & Dorian Komanoff Bandy (Leaf Music)
Released January 24, 2025
This new release by Catherine Cosbey and Dorian Komanoff Bandy features period-instrument performances of the two Duos for Violin and Viola by Mozart: G Major, K423 and in B-flat Major, K424. Also on the album are newly discovered historical arrangements of a Mozart violin sonata and several arias from one of his late operas, La Clemenza di Tito.
What is unique about these recordings is the merging of historical convention and research. Cosbey and Bandy insert their own embellishments and cadenzas into their performance to capture the essence of improvisatory freedom not often heard in performances and recordings of Mozart’s string music. About the collaboration Cosbey says, “We were both excited to put Dorian’s research into practice, to draw on interpretive and stylistic ideas from his book and articles and see what would happen. Dorian wrote exquisite embellishments, an 18th century practice rarely heard in string chamber music. Our goal was to make the music as alive and fresh as it would be if Mozart were playing it himself.”
Read our In Conversation with Dorian to learn more about him and his recently published book on Mozart.
Listen to the album on Leaf Music
