Yair Hashachar is a guitarist, producer, and ethnomusicologist from Israel currently living in Baltimore. He began his musical career as a jazz musician but changed his path the day he heard the sound of the kora for the first time on an old recording of maestro Alhaji Bai Konte. The sound of the kora, the West African harp-lute, inspired his life-long passion for studying West African musical traditions on countless trips to The Gambia, Senegal, Guinea, Ghana, and Côte d’Ivoire. Yair recently completed his PhD in ethnomusicology on the role of music in the expression of pan-African ideology. He was the lead guitarist of Afro-jazz band, Black Guru, and of Yemenite-Jewish music group, Gulaza, with which he performed worldwide, including at WOMEX 2018. As a guitarist, Yair is constantly seeking to reinvent the instrument, expanding it to reach new polyrhythmic and polyphonic horizons. His music is inspired by the devotional music of Africa, which he sees as powerfully relevant today. Yair’s work honors this musical lineage and its ability to renew our spiritual capacity, expose the multidimensionality of reality, and sanctify connections between people, objects, and nature. His music elucidates the sounds of rituals, blending organic drums, interlocking-hypnotic guitars, minimalist electronica, and natural soundscapes.