Born and raised in Addis Ababa, Teshome Wondimu grew up in Fitber, a neighborhood where music and performance were woven into daily life. It was there, amid communal gatherings and informal artistry that his lifelong engagement with culture took root — long before it would carry him onto an international stage.

This year, that journey reached a milestone. Teshome, the founder and chief executive of Selam Ethiopia and the Addis Jazz Festival, became the first Ethiopian to receive the International Citation of Merit from the International Society for the Performing Arts (ISPA), one of the field’s most respected global bodies. The award recognizes more than three decades of work dedicated to building cultural institutions, connecting artists across borders, and strengthening the infrastructure that sustains the performing arts.

While attending Dagmawi Minilik School in Addis Ababa, Teshome began learning musical instruments and performing at a young age. Music quickly became a constant—less a hobby than a parallel education—shaping his interests and orienting him toward creative and organizational work. Those early experiences, he says, laid the foundation for his later involvement in arts management and cultural initiatives.

His path soon took him beyond civilian life. In Asmara, where he joined the Ethiopian Navy, music entered a more structured environment. He performed in marching bands and later with the Navy’s dance band, where rehearsals and performances were embedded in daily routines. The military setting, he recalled, reinforced music’s collective and social function, situating it within public life and shared experience rather than individual expression.

In 1986, Teshome received a scholarship to study music in Moscow. There, he trained as a conductor and musical director, immersing himself in music theory, classical traditions, and institutional models of performance. The years in Russia, he said, expanded not only his technical skills but also his understanding of discipline, coordination, and rehearsal systems—lessons that would later inform his work as an organizer and institution-builder.

“The foundation of my career was shaped by three stages,” Teshome said: “early training, service in the Ethiopian Navy, and studies in Russia.” Together, those experiences formed a framework that guided his professional choices.

A fourth chapter began in 1990, when he moved to Sweden. While adapting to a new society, he remained active in the cultural sector and pursued studies in cultural administration, focusing on planning, management, and policy. His work gradually shifted away from individual performance toward coordination, program development, and institutional engagement.

That shift culminated in the founding of Selam in Stockholm in 1997. Conceived as a platform to connect Sweden with artists from Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean, Selam sought to create space for cultural exchange while broadening access to global music and performance within Sweden. Concerts, tours, and collaborations became its core activities, linking artists with venues, audiences, and cultural institutions.

“Selam was founded to connect Sweden with the rest of the world,” Teshome said, “and to create space for different musical cultures to be presented and exchanged.” Over time, the organization expanded beyond music to include literature, media, theater, film, and circus arts.

As Selam’s footprint grew in Europe, Teshome’s attention increasingly returned to Ethiopia. He began examining how cultural institutions functioned, how heritage was managed, and which systems were missing within the music sector. His focus centered on music education, cultural policy, and the commercial environment surrounding artists—areas he viewed as essential for long-term sector development.

Selam’s work in Ethiopia led to the establishment of a music studio, the launch of festivals including Selam Festival Addis and the Addis Jazz Festival, and the creation of Muzikawi, a company focused on recording, publishing, and rights management. Over nearly three decades, Teshome has been involved in initiatives ranging from research and youth programs to collaboration with government bodies and advocacy around copyright and intellectual property.

His work has also extended beyond national borders. Through pan-African platforms such as the Pan-African Network for Artists’ Freedom and Connect for Culture Africa, he has engaged in continental discussions on artistic freedom, collaboration, and cultural policy, including work with the African Union on cultural funding frameworks.

The effort, he acknowledged, has not been without resistance. Limited engagement from decision-makers and inconsistent investment in culture have been persistent challenges. Addressing them, he said, has required sustained dialogue and long-term advocacy.

“At times, the process has been frustrating,” he said, “especially when long-term experience and sector knowledge are not fully taken into account.”

Despite such obstacles, Teshome’s work has earned growing recognition. He has received several awards, including honors from the City of Stockholm. In 2026, he will formally receive the ISPA International Citation of Merit at the organization’s congress in New York, placing him among global cultural leaders recognized for advancing international collaboration through arts management, education, and institutional development.

“I am honored to receive this recognition from ISPA,” he told The Reporter. “It reflects the contribution of Selam and the people we work with.” The award, he added, both acknowledges work already done and offers encouragement for what lies ahead.

Today, Selam operates as Selam Global, encompassing Selam Sweden, Selam Ethiopia, Selam Kenya, and Muzikawi. The organization continues to produce festivals, tours, and exchange programs, while also working to archive and reissue Ethiopian music recordings, including on vinyl. Plans are underway to establish permanent cultural spaces in both Stockholm and Addis Ababa.

“This award confirms many years of work carried out across countries,” Teshome said. “It is something we share with colleagues, artists, and partners. I will continue building systems that support artists and cultural practitioners in Ethiopia, across Africa, and within international networks.”

Running through Saturday, the residency focuses on music documentation, digital preservation and cultural policy, bringing together practitioners engaged in archiving work from Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania, Somalia and Kenya. In all, 12 participants took part in the program, which emphasizes collaboration across borders in a field often marked by scarce resources.

Titled “Preserving the Sound: A Pan-African Music Record Archiving and Heritage Residency,” the program is part of the Connect for Culture Africa (CfCA) initiative, which advocates for stronger public investment in arts, culture and heritage. CfCA is working with African governments toward a target of allocating at least one percent of national budgets to culture by 2030.

At the opening ceremony, organizers noted a striking paradox: while African music continues to gain global recognition, much of the continent’s historical and contemporary recorded output remains undocumented or at risk of disappearing. Limited infrastructure, fragmented archival systems and restricted access to digital tools, they said, have left many recordings vulnerable to loss.

The residency is designed as a response to those gaps. Over six days, participants exchanged experiences from their home countries, mapping common challenges in East Africa’s music archiving landscape and examining international models that might be adapted locally. The program combines workshops, group discussions and planning sessions aimed at developing prototypes for regional archiving systems.

Beyond technical training, the initiative also included field-based learning sessions that link archival practice with cultural production, exploring how documentation can feed back into creative and community life. Organizers say the goal is not only to preserve music, but to also foster cross border collaboration for the preservation of East African Music.

By the end of the residency, participants are expected to initiate music preservation projects in their local contexts and to join a broader Pan-African network of archivists, musicians and cultural professionals. Planned outputs include documentation materials, policy-oriented recommendations and creative content connected to music archiving and preservation.

Hosted by Selam Ethiopia in collaboration with regional and institutional partners, including national archival bodies, the residency is being tested as a pilot program. Organizers say it may be expanded to other East African countries, including Tanzania and Uganda, by 2026, drawing on lessons learned during the current training phase.

Among the 12 participants is Tabu Osusa, a Kenyan music researcher and the founder of Ketikeli Music. He said the Initiative closely aligns with his organization’s mission to research, document, develop and promote the diverse musical traditions of East Africa.

Osusa pointed to a structural gap that continues to undermine cultural preservation across the continent: the absence of national cultural repositories, particularly for music and film. In contrast to Western countries, he said, where institutional libraries safeguard artistic memory, Africa has largely relied on informal or fragmented systems.

“We don’t have these kinds of institutions in Africa,” he said. “It is time to decide how to act and to convince governments that arts and music matter. When archiving is absent, identity is weakened, and future generations are left without cultural reference points.”

Speaking during the residency’s deliberations, Osusa emphasized that the first task for participants is to clearly define the sector’s challenges and then outline practical responses. One such response, he said, would be forming a coordinated regional group capable of engaging governments and ministries of culture across East Africa.

Osusa says plans are already afoot to establish a collective to lobby governments so they understand the urgency of this issue. “We also need to confront questions of repatriation — how to bring our music and cultural materials back home.” He described the Addis Ababa residency as a potential catalyst, particularly in a continent where much historical knowledge remains oral and insufficiently documented.

The initiative reflects a growing recognition that music archives are not simply records of the past but living resources that shape cultural identity, education and Africa’s presence on the global cultural stage. In that context, Sisay Mengistu, director of programs at Selam Ethiopia, called the protection of Africa’s musical memory a core pillar of cultural identity and sustainable development.

Sisay said many East African countries face similar deficiencies in documenting and archiving artistic works. He noted that the residency is expected to support modernization and digitization efforts, while also promoting African culture internationally in ways that can generate income and stimulate sectorial growth.

“This residency creates a pathway for future generations to understand what we have,” he said, “while also helping the arts sector generate income and raise awareness of its value, especially among young people.” He added that the program offers space to examine country-specific realities, inform policy adjustments and develop long-term strategies for strengthening arts and culture.

Founded in 1997, Selam Ethiopia works to catalyze the country’s cultural sector by building sustainable foundations for the arts. Its activities span music, circus, media, literature, theater and film, while encouraging younger generations to use creative expression as a tool for active citizenship and community engagement.

Looking ahead, Sisay says the initiative aims to expand into Central and West Africa, with a particular focus on digital archiving. By building technical skills and awareness around digitization, he said, the program seeks to transform Africa’s vulnerable oral histories into permanent digital repositories.

But these ancient sanctuaries—remote, fragile, and battered by recent conflict—now sit at the heart of a renewed intervention. Italy has launched a two-year, 1.7 million-euro initiative to restore heritage sites across the Wukro-Gheralta corridor and revive the region’s ecotourism economy. The project, funded by the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation (AICS), aims to stabilize eroded structures, improve access to the cliffside monuments, and support local communities whose livelihoods collapsed when tourism vanished during the war.

The initiative, titled “Supporting Community Resilience through Community-Based Tourism and Heritage Conservation in the Wukro-Gheralta Belt, Tigray,” was formalized in Addis Ababa, where Ethiopia’s State Minister of Finance, Semereta Sewasew, and Italy’s ambassador, Agostino Palese, signed the partnership agreement. For both governments, the program represents more than a conservation exercise; it is an attempt to link preservation with recovery in a region still emerging from trauma.

Officials said the project will pair technical restoration with community-level investment, offering jobs, training, and small-enterprise support to residents who once served as guides, artisans, and custodians of the landscape. The effort aligns with Ethiopia’s Ten-Year Development Plan (2021–2030) and national priorities under the Pretoria Peace Agreement, positioning cultural heritage as a lever for economic rebuilding.

Ambassador Palese and State Minister Semereta cast the initiative as a continuation of the countries’ longstanding partnership, describing the project as “a tool of peace, resilience, and shared cultural identity that restores hope and strengthens communities.”

The region’s significance is vast: 28 known monuments carved into the Gheralta sandstone ridge, rising between 2,100 and 2,500 meters, chart a millennium and a half of uninterrupted religious practice. Yet their survival has grown increasingly precarious. According to a 2025 report by the Commission of Inquiry on Tigray Genocide, the conflict inflicted an estimated USD 1.6 billion in damage on cultural and religious heritage alone, part of a broader USD 10.86 billion in verified losses across social and public sectors.

Beyond the financial toll, the logistical hurdles are considerable. Many churches are accessible only by steep footpaths; roads and visitor facilities suffered damage; and the technical work of stabilizing ancient sandstone structures requires specialized expertise. Security and access in parts of Tigray remain fluid, adding further complexity.

Yet despite the project’s promise and the urgency of preserving the deteriorating sites, restoration work has not resumed—nearly two months after Ethiopia and Italy signed the agreement in October 2025. No scaffolding has gone up, no conservators have arrived, and no community-based tourism activities have been launched.

An official from Tigray’s Regional Tourism Bureau, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, told The Reporter that relations between the Bureau and the federal Ministry of Finance remain “constructive,” and insisted there is no indication that the agreement is being reconsidered. Still, the official confirmed that no restoration activity has taken place, and the regional Bureau has received no formal explanation for the delay.

“The delay persists despite the initial commitment,” the official said, noting that financial arrangements on the federal side may be the cause. “The level of engagement between the regional Bureau and the Ministry of Finance differs regarding the project’s implementation,” the source added, stressing that the budget and the project’s continuation rest fully with the Ministry.

The Ministry has also issued no public statement regarding the halt, nor did officials respond to The Reporter’s inquiries about the status of the agreement. Heritage professionals caution that such silence risks deepening uncertainty at a time when coordinated action—among local authorities, conservation experts, and national bodies—is essential. Any intervention, they say, must be both culturally sensitive and environmentally sound.

The uncertainty has also unsettled those whose livelihoods depend on the region’s fragile tourism sector. A veteran tour operator who has worked in Gheralta for decades said the two-year conflict left what he called “a devastating gap” in business.

“Tourism came to a complete standstill during the war,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity for personal reasons. “Security and tourism are inseparable.”

Before the conflict erupted in 2020, he recalled, his business and many others were thriving. But the war forced guides, drivers, and local businesses out of work. Conditions have improved, he noted, since the Peace Agreement, and the joint Ethiopian–Italian initiative was widely welcomed by those in the industry.

“After the agreement, some tourists came to the sites on their own initiative,” he said. “The restoration initiative also signals to Italian visitors that the region is safe. These steps have helped. But there are still challenges that need immediate addressing.”

Chief among them, he explained, are continuing security concerns, inadequate roads, and persistent transportation problems. “Tourism requires reliable roads and proper infrastructure,” he said, describing the rough routes to the Wukro–Gheralta area—and even the narrow paths leading to the Sacred Landscapes of Tigray—as among the most difficult in the country. “Without proper solutions, operating is extremely hard.”

Still, he remains hopeful that the long-delayed restoration will soon begin. He pointed to the Gebeta Lehager initiative, which supports accommodation services and cultural exchange, as an important tool for increasing tourist flows and improving livelihoods for both community members and operators.

The Gheralta initiative is not the only heritage project underway. Ethiopia is pursuing several parallel efforts with international partners to protect cultural and natural assets damaged or endangered in recent years.

One of the largest involves the government of France, whose French Development Agency has committed more than EUR five million to conserve the monolithic rock-hewn churches of Lalibela. That program extends beyond emergency stabilization to include scientific research and training for local artisans, linking conservation to long-term socio-economic development in surrounding communities.

Elsewhere, the British Council’s Cultural Protection Fund is supporting the renovation of the Dessie Museum in Amhara Region, which was vandalized and looted during the conflict. Organizations such as Farm Africa are also working in the Ilu Ababor Zone to develop community-based ecotourism connected to biodiversity sites including the Yayo Forest UNESCO Biosphere Reserve.

Taken together, these efforts signal a growing recognition—shared by both local and international partners—that safeguarding heritage is not only a cultural imperative but a pathway to recovery, resilience, and renewed livelihoods in post-conflict Ethiopia.

But when he heard the news this week that UNESCO had inscribed Gifaataa—the Wolayta people’s New Year festival—on the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity list, Tesfaye said it felt like a homecoming. The announcement, he said, carried the weight of a promise he had held since childhood, when he first learned the stories and rituals surrounding the festival in Areka.

For Tesfaye, the recognition is both personal and generational. “I am the happiest man alive today,” he told The Reporter. “Now my kids know where I come from and the tradition of their family. I hope to take them to my homeland for next year’s Gifaataa celebration.”

Gifaataa, observed between mid-September and early October, marks renewal and reconciliation among the Wolayta. UNESCO notes that preparations begin weeks earlier, with households cleaning their compounds, settling disputes and welcoming family members returning home for the holiday. On the main day, families share raw meat and local beer, and elders offer blessings.

Evening gatherings feature bonfires, rituals, dancing and communal songs. The celebrations stretch across ten days, culminating in goolo-igetta, a public festival marked by horse riding, music and final blessings.

Roles are traditionally assigned by age and gender: girls prepare food and decorate homes; boys gather firewood, build bonfires and help repair houses. Elders preside over conflict resolution, provide agricultural guidance and bless younger generations. Much of the festival’s knowledge is passed down within families and reinforced by schools, local media and cultural institutions.

Beyond its spiritual and social significance, Gifaataa also serves as a forum where young people meet potential marriage partners and families renew bonds strained by distance or time.

The festival’s timing, historians say, traces back to royal advisers who once studied lunar cycles to determine the New Year. After interpreting the moon’s phases, they presented their findings to the king, who then authorized public proclamations in marketplaces and communal gatherings.

Gifaataa now joins Ethiopia’s growing roster of UNESCO-recognized intangible heritage elements, including the Meskel festival, the Gada system, Timket, Fichee-Chambalaalla, the Ashenda girls’ festival and Somali camel culture.

For Tesfaye, the inscription is more than an international accolade. It affirms a tradition he long hoped to pass on, reconnects his children to their ancestral story and lodges a central piece of Wolayta identity firmly in the global cultural record.

“In the last days we prepared a beautiful lasagna with teff rather than using wheat. It is more sustainable and tastes even better,” said Claudio Pasqualucci, the Italian Trade Agency representative in Addis Ababa. “This is to show how easily our food culture can integrate with local ingredients.”

Italian Cuisine Week is a global initiative staged to promote Italy’s gastronomic heritage, industry, and convivial culture. In Ethiopia, the program unfolded with hands-on training sessions, community events, and curated dining experiences led by visiting chefs—bringing a taste of Italy directly to Ethiopian students, professionals, and the public.

But this year, organizers say the celebration took on greater dimension in a country Italy calls a long-standing partner.

Visiting chefs spent the week demonstrating how beloved classics—like tiramisu—could be reimagined using Ethiopia’s world-renowned coffee. The culinary exchange, however, was not only about flavor and technique. Strengthening commercial ties between the two countries remains central.

“We want to have more Italian products in this market,” Pasqualucci noted. “We are working with importers, distributors, and young chefs to help them learn how to use these products, so they become easier to find on shelves here.” The initiative, he said, encompassed “360 degrees of the local hospitality sector.”

The week opened with specialized training for chefs at Ethiopian Airlines and the Skylight Hotel—an acknowledgment that the multiple daily flights linking Addis Ababa and Rome are prime opportunities to introduce Italian cuisine. A gala dinner attended by high-level officials and the newly appointed Italian ambassador showcased what collaboration can look like at the top tier of dining.

Yet the emotional highlight unfolded far from the professional kitchens.

“We cooked a charity lunch at an orphanage in Yeka Sub-City,” Pasqualucci said. “There were around 80 children, orphans and children with disabilities. We cooked with them, we enjoyed with them. For me, that was one of the most meaningful moments of the week.”

The final day concluded at a hospitality school, where Italian chefs praised the “high level of preparation, commitment, and enthusiasm” among Ethiopian trainees—an encouraging sign for a sector hungry for growth.

Organizers say Italian Cuisine Week has become a cornerstone of deepening culinary cooperation, strengthening both cultural ties and workforce capacity. The Italian Trade Agency, Pasqualucci added, will continue to support the hospitality industry through knowledge exchange and professional development.

Habetamu Wondemu, an instructor at the Ethiopian Hotel and Tourism Institute, has been at the forefront of practical trainings aimed at sharpening the culinary skills of aspiring chefs.

Specializing in food preparation, he played a central role in the week’s program, which brought together hospitality students, community participants, and seasoned professionals for an immersive learning experience. The initiative, he said, reflects a broader push to elevate Ethiopia’s culinary capacity through structured instruction and hands-on collaboration.

Working side by side with visiting Italian chefs, Habetamu helped lead curated cooking sessions that highlighted Italy’s celebrated culinary traditions. Participants were introduced to a wide repertoire of dishes, gaining direct exposure to international kitchen methods and ingredients that are essential to Italian cuisine.

“The series was designed not only to demonstrate specific recipes but also to broaden the participants’ understanding of global gastronomy,” he said.

For students eager to advance their careers in the hospitality sector, the program functioned as a master class in technique and creativity. Habetamu noted that the lessons provided both foundational training and advanced skills—giving participants the confidence to replicate Italian dishes and adapt the methods to their own work as Ethiopia’s dining culture continues to expand.

“This kind of exposure and practical knowledge can shape their journey toward becoming accomplished chefs,” he said.

The collaboration emphasized during Italian Cuisine Week underscores a relationship between Ethiopia and Italy that now reaches well beyond history books. It is a cultural connection evolving at the dining table—where shared techniques, local ingredients, and culinary imagination continue to strengthen a partnership built on exchange and a growing, intertwined food identity.

Ethiopian music, in this era of shifting tastes, digital marketplaces, and global currents, now stands before such a mirror. The debate surrounding it has become a reflection, posing uncomfortable questions and demanding clarity: who are we, and what are we becoming?

Through generations of artists, one question keeps returning: are we losing our sound?

This inquiry has outgrown technical debates over instrumentation or recording practices. It has become a cultural reckoning. What does it mean to make Ethiopian music today? In a world seduced by algorithms, Afrobeats, and borderless digital trends, how can a nation preserve the soul woven into its scales?

The conversation threads through time: slipping along vinyl grooves, cassette spools, CD jackets, and now streaming links. It echoes in studios where young producers stare at laptops glowing into the night and in rehearsal rooms where older musicians tighten the strings of instruments that have existed longer than many nations.

Recently, in a conversation with The Reporter, two of the country’s respected musical voices—composer, arranger, and pianist Dawit Yifru, and Musikawi CEO and producer Samuel Mulugeta—shared their reflections. Speaking from different vantage points, they sketch a portrait of a music scene caught between forgetting and rediscovering itself.

Though their creative paths differ, both illuminate the same truth: Ethiopia’s musical identity is under pressure—not from outside forces, but from within. Both insist the world wants something from Ethiopia that Ethiopia itself is in danger of abandoning.

When Dawit speaks of Ethiopian music, it is with quiet urgency and the calm authority of someone who has spent a lifetime listening—not just with his ears, but with memory. He is unsettled, perhaps even wounded, by a growing notion within the industry: that relevance means sounding like Afrobeats, Afro-pop, American pop, or whatever commercial current sweeps global playlists. To him, this idea is tragically backward.

“We have our own sound,” he insists. “A sound shaped by the tizita scale, unique to our culture; by rhythms older than many modern states; by melodies woven into childhood rituals. These are not relics—they are living DNA of the nation.”

Yet, he notes, young musicians sometimes believe the opposite—that modernity comes from looking outward.

“People assume modernity means progress,” he says. “And inside that assumption lies a painful irony: in trying to sound more global, Ethiopian music risks erasing the very identity the world is seeking.”

Dawit’s observation is simple, yet astonishing: in Europe and America, more than a dozen foreign bands today perform Ethiopian music—painstakingly studying its vocal styles, scales, and rhythms. Not as experiments, but as committed artistic identities.

“They have exhausted everything they had at home,” he says. “Now they’re coming to us.”

He recalls traveling recently to Finland and Sweden, where he participated in WOMAX, a global platform celebrated for presenting music rooted deeply in heritage. Nothing he witnessed there attempted to “modernize” the performances; not a single act arrived armed with watered-down pop or diluted jazz. They came with their cultural cores intact.

And world audiences, he notes, gravitate toward exactly that authenticity. The tragedy, in his view, is not global indifference, but Ethiopian indifference.

“We are abandoning what we have and running toward their style. To me, that is a major downfall.”

Ethiopia’s musical DNA—from the tessellating patterns of the kebero to the haunting tension of the tizita—is far richer and more original than the mass-produced genres sweeping the globe. Yet the industry, caught in a spiral of self-doubt, often assumes that copying what’s popular will make it more visible.

Dawit does not dismiss fusion outright. A touch of jazz here, a brush of blues there, “these are spices, not foundations,” he says. The foundation, he insists, must remain Ethiopian.

Because when the root is lost, the music becomes unmoored—“cheap,” “ordinary,” “unremarkable,” in his words. Not because the traditions lack complexity, but because the artists producing them are no longer shaped by the cultural immersion needed to deliver their depth.

For Dawit, nothing embodies Ethiopia’s sonic identity more than the tizita scale—a scale found nowhere else in the world.

It is memory in musical form, childhood in harmonic shape. It lives in weddings, holidays, lullabies, gatherings, grief, and joy. To lose it, he believes, is to lose something fundamental about being Ethiopian.

“Even internationally, people now ask, ‘What is your music? How does it sound?’” he says. Curiosity is growing because the sound is unique—but that uniqueness only exists if Ethiopia continues to carry it.

The danger, he warns, is that artists who never grew up immersed in traditional sounds cannot interpret them authentically. They dilute them, not out of disrespect, but because the music was never internalized—it has not shaped them since childhood. The cultural wiring is missing.

“As the saying goes,” he adds, “we don’t recognize the gold in our hands.”

Dawit highlights the young musician Addis Alemayehu, whose mastery of the masinqo has astonished European performers attempting to replicate pieces from decades ago. They try hard to copy him—a testament not to exoticism, but to craftsmanship cultivated over generations.

Yet Ethiopians often see their own traditions as basic, too familiar to be special. But Dawit believes that music created with cultural intention, “even if not celebrated today, becomes tomorrow’s archive, tomorrow’s history.”

“If we craft our music with intention,” he says, “it will stand.”

If Dawit stakes his claim firmly, Samuel offers a perspective that does not contradict it, but widens the lens.

To Samuel, the idea of “abandoning originality” is often misunderstood. Ethiopian music has always absorbed influences. The beloved classics—Alemayehu Eshete’s electrifying swagger, the vintage horns that defined the seventies—did not arise in isolation. He says they borrowed from Motown, from funk, from Elvis, from The Beatles.

But they borrowed with intention, not imitation. “The difference,” Samuel insists, “is that even when they borrowed, they integrated their own elements. They never adopted things blindly.”

That, he argues, is why those records still resonate across generations: they are both rooted and adventurous.

Samuel believes fusion is not a betrayal of Ethiopian identity, but its lifeline—“only when the foundation remains Ethiopian.”

For him, Ambasel, Bati, Tizita: these scales are not fragile relics. They are flexible frameworks. You can build techno on top of them, dance music, hip-hop, Ama-piano, electronic house. They bend without breaking.

If anything, fusion done well accelerates global acceptance. He cites Mulatu Astatke, whose Ethio-jazz succeeded not because it imitated Western jazz, but because its backbone remained Ethiopian.

“Mulatu used European elements,” Samuel says, “but built the foundation on Ethiopian scales and playing styles.”

In Samuel’s view, the younger generation—including major contemporary figures—is more aware of this than outsiders might assume. They sample tuba-like field horns, market rhythms, countryside flute lines—not for nostalgia, but to anchor new forms of modern electronic expression.

Influence, he argues, is not unidirectional. Ethiopian rhythms inspire foreign producers today, just as Ethiopia absorbs global soundscapes. To him, this is not decay—it is evolution.

Dawit worries about identity; Samuel worries about balance. Both acknowledge a shared reality: the musical ecosystem itself has irreversibly changed.

Albums used to have long lives. They grew slowly, breathed slowly, waited patiently for recognition. A record could sleep for decades, only to awaken when a new generation heard it as if for the first time.

Today, Samuel says, the digital world has rewritten the rules. Music no longer waits—it is pushed. An algorithm recommends a song, and the listener follows. When the algorithm stops, listening stops. The lifespan of a piece is now determined not solely by cultural resonance, but by digital visibility.

“Hundreds of thousands of songs are released every day,” he says. “Competition is extremely fierce.”

Some albums vanish in a week, not for lack of artistry, but because algorithms offer no protection. Others survive through human spaces: clubs, live shows, neighborhoods, DJs in places where music breathes without being reduced to data. Samuel believes these may be the last guardians of longevity.

He recognizes that not every listener immediately grasps the complexity or ambition of a new album. Sometimes, time is the translator. A record rejected today may become a masterpiece tomorrow, once the audience has grown into it. But this requires what the digital world struggles to provide: space for music to breathe.

At the heart of Samuel’s reflections lies one critical question: Who ensures that Ethiopian elements remain intact—not as decoration, but as artistic vision?

In Ethiopia, the producer is often the artist themselves. They choose the lyrics, the arrangements, the sonic direction. This concentration of power can be liberating—but also burdensome.

Samuel believes someone must intentionally protect the Ethiopian backbone of the work. Is it the arranger? The instrumentalist? The lyricist? The poet shaping the melodic motif?

For him, the answer is the producer—not as financier, but as artistic architect. A producer with a clear vision unites all elements, holds the melodic identity in place, and ensures the final product does not drift into imitation.

In older Ethiopian studios, such figures existed. They curated lyrics, selected arrangements, shaped artistic direction. They functioned as cultural gatekeepers. Today, as digital independence grows, that role has weakened—and must be reclaimed if Ethiopian music is to preserve its identity while evolving.

Both Dawit and Samuel, despite their differing paths, converge on one truth: Ethiopian music is not in danger because it is evolving. It is in danger if that evolution loses its anchor.

Dawit fears cultural abandonment. Samuel fears careless fusion. Both fear imitation without understanding. Yet they also see hope. Foreign musicians embrace Ethiopian styles with reverence. Young Ethiopian producers sample ancestral sounds intentionally. Traditional performers astonish global audiences with instruments once dismissed as “ordinary.”

The world is listening—often more carefully than Ethiopians themselves. The question, then, is not whether Ethiopian music will travel internationally. It already has. The question is: what version of Ethiopia will the world hear?

 (Jerusalem, Israel)

Around 95 kilometers from the town of Nazareth, the mountain ranges begin to rise, unfolding across the horizon like an eagle’s outstretched wing. Wide tracts of cultivated farmland accompany the approach, giving way to the bridge into Nazareth and a tunnel that opens onto the modern town built around one of Christianity’s most sacred places—the Basilica of the Annunciation, where tradition holds that the Virgin Mary first learned she would bear a son.

Inside the basilica’s gated compound, the layers of history are almost tactile. Archaeological remains of Crusader churches, Byzantine masonry, and Roman-era foundations rest beneath the contemporary Catholic structure completed in the 20th century. The lower level houses the Grotto of the Annunciation—identified by early Christian sources as “the House of the Virgin Mary”—while the upper basilica glitters with mosaics contributed by Christian communities around the world.

Visitors enter through a broad gate into halls lined with paintings and mirrored panels placed high along the ceiling. Bronze doors and votive panels guide the path toward the grotto below. Overhead, a soaring dome—shaped in homage to the Madonna lily—anchors the architecture. Small rooms along the route host scheduled confessions, and the flow of pilgrims moves steadily between the shadowed grotto and the bright upper sanctuary where Mass is held.

Carlos Velez, a visitor from Puerto Rico, stood absorbing the layers of stone and story. “What’s special about 20th-century archaeology,” he said, “is that people began to understand the importance of preserving the old—allowing visitors to see different periods of time instead of forcing everything into one style.” The basilica, he added, feels like “a mix of styles.”

His pilgrimage through the Holy Land brought him here. “I believe this is the place where Mary received news that the Savior of the world would come through her,” he told The Reporter. “She was only a vessel, an instrument—but the promise behind it was fulfilled. This place is amazing to visit, to enjoy the art and the historic importance.”

More than a 160 kms south of Nazareth, past the northern bridge and the rolling hills beyond it, lies Jerusalem—home to more than a million residents and a spiritual center for billions around the world. Inside its Old City, the walls rebuilt by Sultan Suleyman in the 16th century stretch more than four kilometers, enclosing a labyrinth of narrow alleys and shrines layered with centuries of devotion, conquest, and memory.

A journey through those walls often begins at Jaffa Gate, one of the main Ottoman-era entrances. From there, the paths twist through markets and quarters toward places revered by Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike. And once a year, on the 29th day of the Hebrew month of Heshvan, tens of thousands of Ethiopian Jews gather in Jerusalem to celebrate Sigd, a festival of covenant renewal. In the Old City, they ascend to the Armon Hanatziv Promenade, a panoramic overlook facing the Temple Mount.

As in previous years, this year’s Sigd celebration drew crowds from across the world. Pilgrims arrived from the United States, Europe, and Africa—including many Ethiopians who had traveled long distances to be part of the annual gathering. Members of the Beta Israel community and other participants fasted, recited psalms, and listened to spiritual leaders known as Kessim, who carried the Orit, the ancient Torah written in Ge’ez.

Participants prostrated themselves in prayer, a gesture of humility and longing, and read from sacred texts that reaffirm their centuries-old connection to Jerusalem. When the fast ended, families and friends reunited for a communal meal. Some made their way to the Western Wall, others remained on the Promenade overlooking the Old City, and many lingered in silence—contemplating a history shaped by exile, return, and faith.

Since the Israeli Knesset officially recognized Sigd in 2008, the holiday has evolved beyond a communal observance into a national event, drawing broader attention across Israeli society.

Betelhem, an Ethiopian-born Jew who asked to be identified by her first name only, said the festival’s visibility has grown significantly over the past two decades. “Today, our celebration gets the recognition it deserves,” she told The Reporter. “During Sigd we renew our covenant with God and remember our promise to Jerusalem. Likewise, we must rise together to gain even greater recognition.”

In the soft light of the afternoon, Jerusalem’s beaten stone paths filled with visitors who came to watch, learn, and participate.

Within the Old City’s Christian Quarter stands another site layered with meaning: the compound of the Great Temple in Jerusalem, which contains three spaces tied to the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ, according to Abba Gebereselassi Tesfa, a veteran monk who has served the Ethiopian churches there for 35 years. For him, the assignment is nothing less than a divine calling.

Gebereselassi explained that Ethiopians once held a more active presence in the ancient temple, especially in the 16th century. But the expansion of the Ottoman Empire, along with other historical forces, diminished that role. Tensions remain, he said, particularly with the Egyptian clergy regarding the ownership of the old Ethiopian temple within the compound, in addition to the churches of St. Michael and Medihaniyalem.

“They stole what is ours,” he said. “They deceived the Ethiopian priest at the time and took control of our church. We continue to struggle to reclaim what belongs to us.”

He urged the Ethiopian government to provide stronger support for the clergy stationed there, noting that the monks’ living quarters are in disrepair and that financial assistance is limited. “We want support from the government to improve our living conditions,” he said. “We cannot provide the proper services while living below our standards.”

While Gebereselassi speaks of contested spaces and the need for restoration, others come to the holy site seeking peace. Alemtsehay Belete, originally from Shire Endaselase in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, said that visiting the temple brings her a profound sense of serenity. After more than two decades in Israel, she considers her decision to move there a blessing—one that has deepened her spiritual life.

“I feel complete whenever I visit the temple,” she said. “I cannot imagine living far from it. Whenever I have the opportunity to draw closer to the Lord, I return here to pray and find relief.”

Ethiopia’s historical presence in Jerusalem extends well beyond the ancient temple compound and into the heart of the city, along a quiet corridor known as Ethiopian Street. Here stands the Holy Ministry of the Ethiopian Church and the Kidane Mehret (Kidane Mihret) Church. Visitors ascend from the street into the compound of Debre Genet and immediately confront the circular stone mass of the church, its dome rising above the surrounding rooftops.

 The site occupies land purchased in 1888 during the reign of Emperor Yohannes IV and completed in 1893 with the support of Emperor Menelik II. It is part of the Debre Genet monastery—one of two enduring Ethiopian monastic presences in Jerusalem.

Inside, the church’s design becomes instantly clear: three concentric rings organized around the inner sanctuary. Only priests and deacons may enter the mekdes, the “Holy of Holies,” where the community’s arc of covenant is kept and the Eucharist is celebrated. A secondary ring accommodates communicants, and the outermost circle is reserved for cantors and the wider congregation.

The interior is distinctly Ethiopian—its painted icons and liturgical layout reflecting centuries of ritual tradition. Beyond the church, the compound opens into a cluster of modest dwellings and service buildings belonging to the monastery. Historical accounts and community records describe the site as home to a resident Ethiopian community of clergy, nuns, and laypeople, its operations partially supported by income from properties the monastery owns and rents nearby.

Preserved across centuries, these historical sites, scattered across Jerusalem, serve as repositories connecting present generations with the practices and movements that shaped their societies, reminding them that faith and history are often inseparable.

At the center of that memory, descending the theatre’s staircase with a warm, familiar face, was Getnet Enyew.

He was not yet the legend she would come to revere—the writer, director, actor, poet whose work generations of artists now cite with devotion. He was simply a kind man walking down a staircase, offering help to a nervous student.

“The first person who welcomed me warmly, with a loving, radiant face, was Getnet,” Meaza recalls, with the tenderness of someone replaying a defining moment. “Writer, director, actor—yes. But to me, in that moment, he was the first hand that led me into Ethiopian theatre,” says the now-renowned dramatist and director.

Her appointment that day had been with Tesfaye Gebremariam, then the theatre’s production director. But fate introduced someone else first. She remembers Getnet’s steps—light, almost playful. His voice: How can I help you? And the shock: she had only ever seen him on the television drama Aba Koster, or as the author of Senebet, a text students whispered about like a rite of passage.

She was trembling. He noticed.

Getnet opened a door “that looked exactly like the wall itself,” she says—a door she would later learn led to the shared office he occupied with Tesfaye. “Sit; I’ll keep you company so you won’t stay here alone,” he told her, pulling up a chair and easing into gentle, curious conversation.

Who is teaching you? What is your research about? You chose theatre intentionally? Is that why you joined? His questions carried the softness of someone guiding a young artist toward her first step. Keep at it, he told her, as if granting permission to belong.

“To this day, I still answer him with respect whenever he calls me. I have never—and will never—speak to him casually or lightly,” Meaza says.

Thirty minutes later Tesfaye arrived. Getnet stood, smiled, and said, “I kept her entertained until you came.” Then he slipped back to work.

Some encounters rearrange your understanding of the world. Some people pass briefly through your story but leave an imprint that refuses to fade. For Meaza—and for many who walked those same corridors—Getnet was one of those people: unexpected, gentle, quietly transformative.

And on November 10, 2025, inside the same National Theatre whose doors he opened for so many, Ethiopia gathered to return the honor.

Long before the awards, before the five-million-birr prize, before the ceremonial cloak draped over his shoulders, Getnet was a boy who loved stories. That love grew into more than 17 written plays, more than 23 produced works, and participation in over 27 stage productions—an output that forms one of the most enduring artistic legacies in modern Ethiopian theatre.

His works—both translated and original—span eras, emotions, histories, and moral questions. Among them: Yelilit Rigboč, Wubetin Filega, Wey Addis Ababa, The Vision of Tewodros, Empress Taytu, Aba Kostir, and Misteregnochu.

His stage productions include the beloved Balekabana Baladaba, Alula Abanega, Free Criminals, The Merchant of Venus, Yechognaw Mize, Wuchale 17, The Cursed Apostle, and Hamlet.

These plays are not merely performances—they form part of a cultural archive Ethiopia is still building, works crafted with discipline and a quiet devotion to the craft.

His influence extended far beyond the stage. Getnet wrote and performed in radio dramas, shaped characters for television, published a poetry collection titled Ewketen Felega (“In Pursuit of Knowledge”), and authored the four-act play Wubetn Felega, which ran for four consecutive years at the National Theatre beginning in 1992 E.C.

He was, and remains, proof that Ethiopian theatre is not just a space—it is a lineage.

Tributes for artists often arrive late. But on Monday evening, the tribute arrived exactly on time. Organized by Tesfa Art Enterprise, the night drew relatives, friends, and actors—former students, former collaborators, people who had once been saved by a joke, a conversation, or a door quietly opened. They gathered to honor Getnet.

He entered the theatre not as a director, not as a playwright, but as a man being celebrated by the house he had served for more than four decades.

Abyssinia Bank presented him with a five-million-birr award. Habesha Beer gifted him a new BYD vehicle, and a soon-to-open bank branch in Seferene Selam, Bahir Dar, was named after him. The National Theatre wrapped him in a traditional kaba—a symbolic gesture.

But the truest recognition came not from institutions, but from human voices—voices of those who had walked with him, laughed with him, learned from him, or simply watched him work.

“I am very fortunate—God loves me abundantly. None of this happened by my will,” he told the audience, overcome with emotion. “God cleared my path long ago and placed me at this pillar of honor.” Tears pooled in his eyes. He wiped them away. The hall held its breath.

Among the speakers was Tesfaye Sima, lead actor in Ha Hu or Pe Pu and Wuchale 17. He did not speak of scripts or technique, but of joy.

“He jokes until your stomach hurts, until tears of laughter fall and your cheeks burn,” Tesfaye said.

It is an image that contrasts with the composed artist audiences recognized on stage. Yet that is the real Getnet—the man who could turn exhaustion into comedy, tension into relief.

Artists often speak of generosity as a virtue. For Getnet, generosity was simply muscle memory.

Even artists abroad sent messages—Meron Getnet, Alem Tsehay Wedajo, Tamagne Beyene, Tekle Desta, Alemayehu Gebre Hiwot, Yetnnesh Abebe. All echoed one sentiment: that he shaped them, shaped the field, and that through him entire artistic lineages were born.

“Through Getnet, great artists were created,” said Nebiyu Baye, State Minister for Culture and Sport. “He is one of Ethiopia’s artistic treasures.”

Every great artist has a defining anecdote. For Getnet, it could be the plays, the poems, the international tours—the twelve back-to-back shows in the United States where Ethiopian audiences packed theatres until midnight, all within a single month.

But perhaps the truest story is still the one Meaza tells—the trembling student, the unexpected welcome, the door disguised as a wall.

“He was the one who first took my hand and introduced me to the National Theatre—with the generosity of a father,” she says. “Honoring him is honoring his profession, honoring the National Theatre, and honoring all of us.”

Theatre is an ephemeral medium. It vanishes the moment the applause fades, leaving behind only memory. But some performances linger, not because of the stage, but because of the human being behind them.

Getnet is one of those rare figures whose greatness is measured not only by output, but by impact—on the art, on the artists, on the quiet young people he encouraged without realizing it, and on the history he helped write with his own hands.

Today, the National Theatre still carries the echo of his footsteps. The door he once opened for a frightened student remains, blending almost invisibly into the wall. New actors rehearse on the same boards where his words once came alive. New writers study his scripts, tracing where he paused, where he broke a sentence for breath, where he tucked away a truth too delicate for direct speech.

There are artists in Ethiopia who may never meet him, yet who owe their artistic lineage to the space he made possible.

He is 68 now, though age seems reluctant to claim him. The brightness in Meaza’s story—the smile on the staircase—still remains. The generosity of that moment has only grown.

To recount his achievements is to trace the map of a life lived in devotion—to craft, to people, to the fragile power of stories.

In the end, the art he created may or may not endure; But the door he opened—quietly, gently, disguised as a wall—remains. Still there. Still open. Still guiding the next trembling student into the world of Ethiopian theatre.

(Abebe Fikir has contributed to this article.)  

On an overcast October morning in Addis Ababa, the quiet corridors of the Ethiopian National Archives and Library Agency (NALA) hummed with the whir of old recordings and the flicker of moving images. Inside the Blatta Merse Hazen Wolde Qirqos Hall, a small crowd of archivists, artists, broadcasters, and historians gathered—bound by a shared reverence for the fragile yet enduring power of audiovisual memory.

The occasion was Ethiopia’s commemoration of the World Day for Audiovisual Heritage, an annual observance established by UNESCO to honor the images and sounds that shape humanity’s collective memory. Celebrated globally every October 27th, the day serves both as tribute and warning: history is not only written in ink, but recorded in voices, gestures, and sound.

“Audiovisual archives tell us stories about people’s lives and cultures from all over the world,” reads a UNESCO statement that guided the day’s reflection. “They represent a priceless heritage—an affirmation of our collective memory and a valuable source of knowledge, since they reflect the cultural, social, and linguistic diversity of our communities. They help us grow and comprehend the world we all share.”

In Addis Ababa, that truth resonated with particular force. The idea that a single photograph, a broadcast, or a melody could carry generations of meaning hung in the air—an unspoken theme of the gathering, where the country’s renewed efforts to preserve its audiovisual past took center stage.

The familiar saying that a picture is worth a thousand words found fresh urgency in this context. Ethiopia’s films, sound recordings, and broadcast archives are not relics of nostalgia; they are living documents of social transformation, creative endurance, and national identity.

This year’s commemoration carried special significance. It coincided with the official establishment of the Ethiopian National Committee for the Registration of Documentary Heritage, a body tasked with ensuring that the country’s audiovisual treasures are inscribed in UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register.

The committee’s mission extends far beyond cataloguing. It is about reclaiming narratives—safeguarding the collective memory contained in photographs, films, and recordings that tell the story of Ethiopian life in all its texture and complexity.

For Serse Feresebhat, Director General of NALA, the moment was both celebration and reckoning.

“Indeed, perhaps the Agency has not done as much extensive work in this area as it has in its 82 years of work in the field of manuscripts,” he admitted, speaking with measured candor. “However, the fact that we have managed to collect such rare and valuable audiovisual materials cannot be overlooked.”

He reminded the audience that while most Ethiopians associate NALA with books and manuscripts, the agency is also the custodian of the nation’s sonic and visual memory—from the rhythms of early music recordings to the first flickering reels of television drama.

Tucked away in its vaults lies a trove of vinyl records, magnetic reels, cassettes, VHS tapes, and 35mm and 16mm film. Together, they trace the nation’s artistic and social evolution—some dating back to the dawn of Ethiopian broadcasting, when the voice of an announcer or the strain of a folk tune carried the optimism of a new era.

State Minister of Culture and Sports Nebiyu Baye, who attended the commemoration, described the country’s audiovisual legacy as “truly remarkable.”

“From the German recording of Negadras Tesema Eshete onward,” he said, “we possess over a century of musical recordings that trace a living history.”

That living history encompasses not only the music of celebrated performers but also the soundscapes of ordinary life—radio dramas, public speeches, folk performances, and the first televised debates. Together, they capture the rhythm of a nation growing through song and story.

Nebiyu also reflected on Ethiopia’s early and often overlooked role in African cinema. Films such as Hirut Abatua Manew? (Whose Daughter is Hirut?), produced more than 60 years ago, stand, he noted, as expressions of modernity that predated the rise of many other African film industries.

Cinema in Ethiopia, he suggested, has always been more than entertainment—it has been a mirror of social transformation, often created amid scarcity yet rich in ambition. That Ethiopia could produce such work so early, he said, speaks to a long tradition of visual storytelling.

“Even in those early films,” Nebiyu added, “you can see the desire to document, to express, to modernize. That, too, is heritage.”

But beyond nostalgia, the day’s conversations carried a note of urgency: the need to protect and digitize these fragile records before time erases them.

For decades, Ethiopian Radio and Ethiopian Television have amassed vast repositories—roughly ninety and sixty years’ worth, respectively—of audio and visual recordings. Together, they form not only a technical archive but a spiritual one: the voices of musicians, statesmen, poets, and ordinary citizens whose lives unfolded through sound and image.

Yet preserving these archives demands resources, expertise, and institutional resolve. Magnetic tapes decay; film reels corrode; even digital files can vanish with a power surge or a forgotten password. A proposal emerged during the event: to permanently deposit the archival copies held by both broadcasters at NALA, where they could be restored and safeguarded under one national roof.

The idea resonated deeply. Centralizing the collections, many argued, would improve accessibility for students and researchers while allowing for professional restoration and long-term preservation.

Audiovisual archives, speakers emphasized, are not static relics but living resources—indispensable for education, research, and the understanding of Ethiopia’s linguistic diversity, musical evolution, and media history. For scholars tracing the shifts in Amharic broadcasting or filmmakers studying the roots of local cinema, these collections bridge the distance between past and present.

Inside NALA’s exhibition area, visitors found that bridge made tangible. A modest display of sound, video, and photographic artifacts offered intimate glimpses into the country’s creative memory.

Old vinyl records, their labels fading but still legible in looping Amharic script. A weathered reel of film, coiled in its metallic case. Black-and-white photographs of early television studios—technicians in crisp shirts, standing proudly beside bulky cameras. These were not merely relics but time capsules, holding the laughter, applause, and dialogue of another era.

And as the day’s reflections made clear, preservation is not a backward-looking act but a creative one. To restore a film, to digitize a fading broadcast, to catalogue a forgotten voice—these are acts of storytelling. They ensure that the voices which built a nation can still be heard, long after the reels stop spinning.

At Golden Tulip, Thursday nights transform into an oasis

On Thursday nights in Addis Ababa, as the city’s traffic dissolves into the evening haze, a quieter rhythm begins to pulse. Inside the Golden Tulip lounge, the lights dim to a soft amber and the first piano chords drift into the air — tender, deliberate, almost conversational. The music moves through the room like a shared breath.

It isn’t simply a performance. It’s a ritual — a gentle reclaiming of what music once meant in this city: intimacy, expression, connection.

These Thursday Piano Nights are quickly becoming one of Addis Ababa’s most understated yet essential musical gatherings. They remind audiences — and perhaps the musicians themselves — that live music doesn’t always need spectacle. Sometimes, all it needs is a piano, a voice, and a room willing to listen.

The evening begins without fanfare. No announcements, no spotlight, no demand for attention. The pianist starts quietly, easing into melodies that live in the nation’s collective memory: faint jazz improvisations, timeless Amharic ballads, fragments of songs that feel older than the walls themselves. Conversations soften; the mood shifts.

Soon, the singers join in — two voices trading interpretations of love, longing, and light. One lingers on the melancholy of Tilahun Gessesse’s classics; another glides through Mehamud Ahmed’s modern phrasing. Their voices do not compete but converse, weaving harmonies that suggest both respect and restraint.

There is humility here. No theatrics, no amplifiers straining for dominance — just craftsmanship. The kind of musicianship that grows from years of playing, listening, and trusting the silence between notes. In a city that rewards volume, these Thursday nights celebrate quiet mastery.

But what happens here is more than entertainment; it is a subtle cultural correction. In Addis Ababa’s evolving art scene, live music has often tilted toward the loud, the social, the easily consumed. Yet here, the audience listens. They do not talk over the pianist or scroll through their phones. They listen — fully. And in that collective stillness, something beautiful unfolds: a shared quiet that feels both rare and necessary in the capital’s restless tempo.

For older guests, the experience recalls the golden days of hotel lounges and orchestral cafés — when musicians played from the heart, not the playlist. For younger listeners, it is a revelation: that music can be intimate without being private, emotional without being extravagant.

That, in essence, is what Thursday Piano Nights have revived — a culture of attentive listening.

The repertoire bridges generations. The pianist moves fluidly between jazz standards and Ethiopian classics: a reimagined “Yene Konjo” one moment, a delicate “Autumn Leaves” the next. The blend feels seamless, but more importantly, intentional.

These nights are not curated to impress; they are curated to connect. Each piece carries a memory — of dance halls and smoky cafés, of afternoons when a record player anchored the living room. The musicians seem aware of this lineage. They play not only for the audience before them, but for the generations that built Ethiopia’s musical identity: the keyboardists of the 1960s, the vocalists who shaped Amharic pop, the jazz bands that once filled city hotels with improvisational fire.

There is reverence in their sound, a quiet recognition that music, like memory, survives only when played aloud.

What makes these evenings remarkable is not merely the skill of the players, but the intimacy of their exchange. You see it in the way the pianist nods before shifting key, or how the singer closes his eyes at the peak of a verse — not for drama, but to hold the moment steady. Every gesture feels deliberate; every note lands with quiet significance.

There is no barrier between musician and listener. No stage, no elevation, no distance. The piano sits in one corner of the room, yet the music feels central — an anchor around which everything else orbits. Conversations hush when the first few measures of a beloved tune begin. Couples lean closer, not to whisper, but to listen. That shared silence, that collective pause, becomes a kind of music itself.

Addis Ababa has always been a city in motion — cranes rising, traffic swelling, nights filled with amplified sound. But amid that constant acceleration, spaces like this remind the city of its craving for softness.

The Thursday Piano Nights have become a refuge for that softness — a weekly reprieve from the city’s intensity. A place where an artist can linger on a melody, and an audience, for once, allows time to slow with it.

It isn’t nostalgia driving this revival of quieter performance; it’s recognition — recognition that live music is not just entertainment, but emotion, communication, and care.

“You don’t just hear the piano here,” one regular attendee said. “You feel what the city has been missing.”

Though the piano is the evening’s heart, it rarely beats alone. Spontaneous collaborations often emerge: a singer joins a fellow musician, an amateur steps in for a song or two, a guest performer blends languages and styles. These moments blur the line between planned and improvised, echoing the soul of Ethiopian jazz and its instinct for improvisation.

The result is a kind of fluid artistry — alive, unrepeatable, never rehearsed the same way twice. Perhaps that’s what gives these nights their quiet power. In an age of digital playlists and studio perfection, they offer imperfection — the human kind.

But the rebirth of piano-led evenings is about more than art. It signals a broader shift within the city’s creative community — a renewed respect for craftsmanship and connection. As Addis transforms, its art is finding new homes in familiar spaces: cafés, bars, and hotel lounges where the line between performer and listener dissolves.

Each Thursday performance at the Golden Tulip is a reminder that the piano remains one of the city’s most eloquent storytellers. It has accompanied generations — through revolution, romance, and rebirth — and still speaks, without words, to what Addis feels like at its most sincere.

When the final song fades, the applause rises — not loud, but genuine. The pianist nods. The singers smile. And for a brief moment, everything — the sound, the silence, even the city outside — seems suspended.

Then the spell gently breaks. People return to their tables; conversations resume. But something lingers — an afterglow only live music can leave behind.

These Thursday nights are not grand. They are not crowded. But they are necessary. They give Addis Ababa something beyond entertainment — they give it reflection, rhythm, and tenderness. And as long as there’s a piano willing to play, and a few people willing to listen, the city will always have its softer pulse.