Telahun Gessese
ARTIST/Dr. Telahun Gessese: The Thunderous voice of the King of Music
By Teodros Kiros, PhD
Joy. Laughter. Dance and more dance. Pride and tradition, modernity and Classism. These were the languages of the Ethiopian youth and some of their parents on this cold winter night as they jubilantly flooded the dance floor.
The dance floor at a huge hall readied to accommodate over a thousand people bursting with the exuberance of youth, the fire of joy, the swings and twists of modern Ethiopian dance responding to the groveling multicultural band of a Caucasian trumpeter, an oriental clarinet and an Ethiopian female singer dominated this winter night in the city of Watertown, Ma, on December 9, 2006. Read more »

A CONVERSATION WITH MULATU ASTATKE: ON HELIOCENTRICS, ETHIO-JAZZ AND ELLINGTON
Wednesday, Apr. 8 2009 @ 12:12PM
By Jeff Weiss in weiss

Rivaling Fela Kuti, King Sunny Ade, Franco, Tabu Ley Rochereau, and a handful of others, Mulatu Astatke ranks among the most influential African musicians of all-time. Read more »

Dr. Ashenafi Kebede, one of Ethiopia’s greatest cultural treasures–composer, conductor, ethnomusicologist, historical musicologist, music educator, novelest, and poet. Dr. Kebede received degrees from the University of Rochester (B.A. from Eastman School of Music in 1962) and Wesleyan University (M.A. in 1969 and Ph.D. in 1971, both degrees in ethnomusicology). Read more »