Something for the weekend!
On Saturday 21 May, 2016, Krar Collective gave a free concert at the Claude Lévi-Strauss Theatre, Musée du Quai Branly, Paris.
Krar Collective are:
Temesgen Zeleke : Electric krar, bass krar, masenko, vocals
Genet Assefa : Vocals and clapping
Grum Begashaw : Percussion
Krar Collective are managed by Sebastian Merrick of Kazum. Just over an hour of the show was broadcast by ARTE TV, The European Culture Channel, and the footage can be viewed on the KazumUK YouTube channel.
Also worth listening to is the short (4 min 20 sec) interview Temesgen gave to the BBC for the Africa Beats programme broadcast on 7 June 2013, where, near the end, he describes the difficulty he had in persuading his mother to let him play the Krar.
It reminded me of the traditional story of Saint Yared, the father of Ethiopian church music, who once ran away because he struggled too much to learn at church school. A storm forced him to shelter under a tree, from where he watched a caterpillar make many attempts to climb up to the leaves before it eventually managed to make it. He realised that he should not have given up so easily - if at first you don’t succeed then try, try, try again - and returned to his studies.
[And this was nearly 800 years before Robert the Bruce and his spider in a cave...]
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