Vieux Farka Touré presents a Benefit for The Ali Farka Touré Foundation
Renowned guitar virtuoso Vieux Farka Touré takes the stage at Race Brook Lodge for an intimate benefit concert dedicated to preserving and expanding the legacy of his late father, Malian music icon Ali Farka Touré. The Ali Farka Touré Foundation works to advance cultural preservation, music education, youth arts initiatives across Mali, and the annual Ali Farka Touré Festival held in Bamako.
Vieux Farka Touré is a virtuoso whose style always pays homage to the past while looking toward the future. This is a musical experience not to be missed!
Thursday, November 5th, 2026
6:00pm Doors Open / Music at 7:30pm. All ages.
In the Barn at Race Brook Lodge, 864 South Undermountain Road ( AKA Rt 41 ) Sheffield, MA (MAP)
This is a standing-room and dancing-room only event. We have a very limited number of seats available by request in advance for guests who are not able to stand.
Ticket Price: Early Bird $45 / General Admission $50 / Last Call $60 (plus booking fee). Tiers sell in order, so the earlier you buy, the less you pay.
STAY THE NIGHT — Race Brook guest rooms are open through November 7.
Click here to request a room
ABOUT THE ALI FARKA TOURÉ FOUNDATION
This concert is a benefit for The Ali Farka Touré Foundation, which carries forward the legacy of Ali Farka Touré through cultural preservation, music education and youth arts initiatives across Mali, and presents the annual Ali Farka Touré Festival in Bamako.
ARTIST BIO
Vieux Farka Touré was born in Niafunké, Mali in 1981, the son of the legendary Malian guitarist Ali Farka Touré. Ali came from a historical tribe of soldiers and had defied his own parents to become a musician, so when Vieux said in his teens that he wanted the same life, his father refused — he knew the pressures of it, and wanted his son to become a soldier instead. With help from the family friend and kora maestro Toumani Diabaté, Vieux eventually won his father’s blessing, shortly before Ali passed in 2006.
He started as a drummer and calabash player at Mali’s Institut National des Arts and began playing guitar in secret in 2001. Ali was already weakened with cancer when Vieux announced he was going to record an album. Ali played on a couple of those tracks — among the last recordings he ever made. It is said he played rough mixes of them for visitors in his final days, at peace with, and proud of, his son.
The self-titled debut arrived in 2007, followed by Fondo in 2009, where Vieux stepped out of his father’s shadow into a sound of his own — the roots of Malian desert blues threaded with rock, Latin music and other African influences. By June 2010 he was playing the opening concert of the FIFA World Cup in South Africa.
The Secret (2011) was produced by Eric Krasno of Soulive and featured Dave Matthews, Derek Trucks and John Scofield; its title track was the last thing Vieux and his father recorded together. He has not stopped since — Mon Pays (2013), written in response to the conflict in northern Mali; two albums with the Israeli musician Idan Raichel as the Touré-Raichel Collective; Samba (2017), cut live in the studio; and Les Racines (2022), a deliberate return to the traditional Malian forms he grew up inside.
That same year he made Ali with the Houston band Khruangbin — a full record of his father’s songs, reimagined. It reached an entirely new audience, and for a lot of people it is the door they came in through.
He speaks eight languages. Live, he is known for his speed and dexterity on the guitar, and for a charisma and a luminous smile that carry across any language barrier in the room.