Lucy Durán

Who is Lucy Durán?

Lucy Durán is an ethnomusicologist, record producer and radio presenter. In the 1980s, Durán worked as a curator at the National Sound Archive. She is a lecturer in African music, an undergraduate tutor and an undergraduate admissions tutor in the Department of Music School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. She is the daughter of Spanish composer and civil war veteran Gustavo Durán and the sister of poet Jane Duran.

She is a regular presenter of BBC Radio 3's world music programme World Routes and a producer of record albums by African musicians including Kora player Toumani Diabate, singer Kasse Mady Diabate, ngoni player Bassekou Kouyate and Sephardic singer Yasmin Levy. In Durán's record producing projects she often co-produces with American expatriate Joe Boyd.

In 2007, she sat in as presenter of Andy Kershaw's Radio 3 programme during Kershaw's extended absence, until the programme was replaced by World on 3 with its rotating team of presenters.