Garikayi Tirikoti is a Zimbabwean Mbira

Mbira

In African music, the mbira is a musical instrument that consists of a wooden board to which staggered metal keys have been attached. It is often fitted into a resonator...

 player, instrument maker, composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

, arranger

Arranger

In investment banking, an arranger is a provider of funds in the syndication of a debt. They are entitled to syndicate the loan or bond issue, and may be referred to as the "lead underwriter". This is because this entity bears the risk of being able to sell the underlying securities/debt or the...

 and teacher of mbira music

Mbira music

In Zimbabwean music, mbira music is music played on an mbira, a traditional instrument of the Shona people of Zimbabwe.To many people Mbira music appears extremely repetitive, or cyclical...

. He was the first to develop the ‘mbira orchestra’ where differently pitched and differently tuned mbiras are combined in a single performance. Tirikoti builds instruments for the orchestras and has invented some new tunings such as Nyabango, in addition to fine tuning instruments for specific songs.

The work on his album Maidei was described by the Portland Phoenix as having "amazing speed and precision" with "overdubbing to build a complex mesh of mbira lines and rich choral passages of call-and-response".