"They backed legendary Ethiopian ... have to love it, what you are doing,” he says. “If you have a tension when you do it, you [won’t] know how to play what you know. Music has to be fun.” ...

“It was a revolutionary time for music in Ethiopia,” says Hailu Mergia, a Ethiopian pianist and accordionist ... place of the artist himself. “That love of country is why he’s only ...

“People there don’t pay attenton to classical music. It’s all ... Then came Yifrashewa's pieces from "Love & Peace." These, he explained, were based on Ethiopian folk songs, but the European ...

This is largely how an unorthodox love of European orchestral music was injected into the Ethiopian bloodstream. By the 1950s, every imperial institution of note, from the army, the police and the ...

Love songs like "Mewdeden Wededkut ... a conduit into getting even deeper into the traditional music of Ethiopia for me," said Ethiopian-American singer, songwriter and composer Meklit Hadero.

unique sound from Ethiopian folk styles and Western jazz and soul music. “When you really love this music,” says Mekkonen, “The way you get something you like is not by treating it in a ...