Mulatu Astatke will play Royce Hall on the UCLA campus on Saturday, February 21, 2015 at 8:00pm. Astatke is known as the father of Ethio-jazz, which blends traditional Ethiopian music with jazz and other styles of the African diaspora.
Special guest Meklit Hadero, Ethiopian-born singer/songwriter and co-founder of The Nile Project, will open the show.
Hear The Nile Project on SoundCloud
“The Nile Project was founded in August 2011 by Egyptian ethnomusicologist Mina Girgis and Ethiopian-American singer Meklit Hadero to address the Nile basin’s cultural and environmental challenges using an innovative approach that combines music, education and an enterprise platform.” – www.nileproject.org
“The Nile Project curates cross-cultural collaborations among musicians from the Nile region. Through these musical dialogues, we aim to foster cultural connections among the people living along the river to help us tackle our water-based environmental challenges. Inspired by Yoyo Ma’s Silk Road Project, Egyptian ethnomusicologist Mina Girgis and Ethiopian-American singer-songwriter Meklit Hadero developed the Nile Project as a platform to spread environmental awareness and inspire change among Nile citizens.”
