Singer Gabriella Ghermandi and her italo-ethiopian ensemble “Atse Tewodros Project” host their “Set Nat Concert” on Tuesday April 19, 2022 at the Italian cultural institute, Addis Ababa.
The show combined both Ethiopian and Italian languages, with traditional Ethiopian instruments being mixed with modern ones, to make an incredible mix of sounds.
An evocative musical journey led by the writer and performer Gabriella Ghermandi, and her group of creatives set the stage alight providing a dialogue between historical memory and the future. The band which comprises four traditional musicians and three jazz / afrofunky musicians give life to unique captivating sounds vocalized by the melodious voice Gabriella Ghermandi.
Gabriella Ghermandi, a singer, performer, novelist and short-story writer was born in Addis Ababa in 1965 to an Italian father and Ethiopian mother, and raised in Ethiopia. In 1979, a year after her father’s death, Ghermandi moved permanently to Italy.
In April 2007 her first novel, Regina di fiori e di perle, was published by Donzelli Editore, and the English translation, Queen of Flowers and Pearls, came out with Indiana University Press in 2015.
In 2010, in an effort to bring together Italian and Ethiopian musicians as a way of fostering mutual dialogue and artistic creation, she created the Atse Tewodros Project. This project got its start in Addis Ababa and is named after one of the great emperors in Ethiopian history, Atse Tewodros II.