Born in Budapest and raised in Canada, Sophie Lukacs is a Kora player, singer-songwriter and one of the only women in the world to play the 21-string Mandinka instrument. She has forged a distinctive style, drawing on her classical violin training, her seven years of study in Mali with kora virtuoso Toumani Diabaté and her roots in Hungarian Jewish folk music.
As Queen Elizabeth said in her annual message to Canadians "the path we take in life is not always smooth and may at times this year have felt quite bumpy.”