Keur Moussa

In 1963, nine monks from the French monastery of Saint-Pierre of Solesmes, a centuries-old stronghold of the ancient Gregorian plainchant tradition, journeyed to remote Senegal to establish a Benedictine abbey. Keur Moussa Abbey, as it is known to the local villagers, means House of Moses. From the day of their arrival, the monks of Keur Moussa have investigated their convergent musical worlds, and created a remarkable new lineage in the thousand-year-old choral music tradition. On Keur Moussa, they weave the rhythms and instrumental textures of Africa with traditional Western plainchant (sung in French and Wolof, the language of the region).