Toumani Diabaté waves expansively. “Welcome to my palace!” Dressed in green robes and holding a pack of Marlboros, he is holding court in the sunshine on the roof terrace of a Seville hotel. He has a right to feel regal. At 42, Diabaté is the world’s foremost player of the kora, the signature instrument of the medieval Manding empire of west Africa, which he has helped to bring back to prominence. A 21-stringed harp with a resonator made from a calabash, the kora sounds like a cross between a guitar and a harpsichord. It is played with thumbs and forefingers, bassline and accompaniment and melody at once.

Diabaté has played with other musicians, both African (Youssou N’Dour, Baaba Maal, Ali Farka Touré) and western (most recently Björk). Two years ago, he released a CD of an ambitious project, the Symmetric Orchestra, a pan-west African big band. He is in Seville to launch a new CD, The Mandé Variations, eight pieces for solo kora that he hopes will redefine the way the world thinks of the instrument and of African music.