Simon Winsé is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, and singer: kora, n’goni, mouth bow, and Fulani flute. His musical world draws inspiration from jazz fusion, blues, and the traditional music of the San people in northwestern Burkina Faso, where he is from. It was in his native village that Simon, as a child, learned to play the mouth bow—a legendary instrument with mesmerizing vibrations. As a teenager, he moved to Ouagadougou, where he specialized in the Fulani flute and the n’goni. Today, he is recognized as one of the great Fulani flutists. In 2000, audiences discovered him alongside his brother Tim Winsé, a famous singer and instrumentalist, whom he accompanied on tours in Africa and Europe from 2004 to 2006. In 2007, Simon embarked on a solo career and founded his band Simpaflute with French musicians: a fusion of traditional San rhythms and jazz. A standout at the Africolor Festival and under the artistic direction of Cheick Tidiane Seck, he has been in residence at Le Bourget since the fall of 2013. He was the lead singer and musician for the band Djenkafo and performs regularly at the Observatoire de Cergy (opening for Boubacar Traoré). In April 2014, he performed in Turkey for the first Francophonie Festival. In theater, he participated in 2015 in the musical creation of a show by Hervé Massamba in the Congo. In 2016, he joined forces with Burkinabé actor Etienne Minoungou to stage Si nous voulons vivre (If We Want to Live), based on a text by Sony Labou Tansi, and then in 2019, Traces, Discours aux nations africaines (Traces: A Speech to the African Nations), based on a text by Felwine Sarr—two productions that toured Europe and Africa. In 2026 at the Festival d’Avignon IN, they presented a new production, L’Intraitable beauté du monde, based on texts by Édouard Glissant and Sony Labou Tansi.
In 2018, he released his first album, Dangada (La Joie), on the Gigantonium label.
He leads workshops in schools, performs a therapeutic show at facilities for people with multiple disabilities, and works in the field of psychiatry as part of a project written by Juliette Kempf at Saint-Alban Hospital, following which he collaborated with her to create the show Lettres Vives.
→His website
