Danny Mekonnen’s residency at the ArtLab, in collaboration with Brighton-based nonprofit Silkroad, supported the research and development of this work, performed at ArtLab in January 2020. Emergence is a project that illuminates the “spiritual jazz” developed by pianist, harpist, singer, and composer Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda.
Collaborating Silkroad artists, led by composer and saxophonist Danny Mekonnen, also included Edward Perez, bass; Shane Shanahan, percussion; Mazz Swift, violin; Preeti Vasudevan, dancer with guests: Amirtha Kidambi, vocals and synthesizer; Nicole Mitchell, flute; Brandee Younger, harp; Ceren Turkmenoglu, violin.
Danny Mekonnen is a Boston-based, Ethiopian-American composer and saxophonist; he is the Founder of the Debo Band. Mekonnen has an M.A. in ethnomusicology from Harvard University, where he researched Ethiopian popular music of the 1960s-1970s. In 2007, he taught a UNESCO course in musical ethnography at the Institute of Ethiopian Studies, Addis Ababa University. Mekonnen also served as the director of the Nile Project, an ensemble comprised of musicians from the eleven countries of the Nile Basin, including Ethiopia, Sudan, and Egypt, each a major stakeholder in the region’s political, environmental, and cultural stability.