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Althea SullyCole is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, and ethnomusicologist from New York City. She is currently based in Montréal, QC, where she is Assistant Professor of Ethnomusicology at the Schulich School of Music at McGill University. 

Althea studied her primary instrument, the kora, a 21-stringed harp from the Mandé region of West Africa, under korists Yacouba Sissoko and Edou Manga. She spent 3 years studying the instrument in Dakar, Senegal. In addition to her solo work, she has worked with Billy Harper, Billy Bang, Fred Ho, Daara J Family, Sahad Sarr, Royal Messenger, LaFrae Sci, Lisette Santiago, Joseph Daley, Craig Harris and father Bill Cole, among many others. In 2015, Althea formed the duo 42 Strings alongside gu zheng player, Muqi Li, with whom she performed at Royal Albert Hall and on BBC 3 Radio in London. More recently, she has been an artist-in-residence at University of California Davis, California State University Monterey Bay and Santa Clara University. She has given performances at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston solo; at the Apollo Theatre in New York City with LaFrae Sci’s Groove Diplomacy Orchestra; and at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington D.C. with Lisette Santiago’s project “In Her Voice.” Althea’s debut album, Due West, is set to be released on July 11th, 2025.