By Yelibenwork Ayele

"Zoro Ghetem" or Reunion, a CD of traditional songs by members of the former Orchestra Ethiopia was released in the United States and brought in 10,000 dollars, the Institute of Ethiopian Studies at the Addis Ababa University (AAU) told The Reporter. The money will be donated for the new library the institute is about to build.

The same CD was launched here yesterday at the Ras Mekonnen Hall of the AAU. The vocalists who remixed the songs in the "Zoro Ghetem" album are former members of the Orchestra Ethiopia: Charles Sutton, Getamesay Abebe, Melaku Gelaw and Tesfaye Lema, the composer. Charles and Getamesay played on stage some of the traditional songs from the collection.

Orchestra Ethiopia was founded in 1963 by the Creative Arts Center at the Haile-Selassie I University (HSIU), now the AAU. Its members were about thirty instrument players, vocalists and dancers. They played the harp, flute, trumpet, psaltery, drum and other traditional stringed instruments.

Orchestra Ethiopia was conceived by Halim El-Dabh, an Egyptian-born composer who came up with the idea of bringing all the Ethiopian traditional instruments together in a single ensemble. Halim had traveled researching and recording all the local musicians he found along the way from Agordat in Eritrea to Arba Minch in the south of Ethiopian. And he was appointed associate professor of music at the HSIU and put in charge of the music program at the Creative Arts Center.

Halim's successor, John Coe, earned a bachelor of arts degree in music from Dartmouth College before joining the Peace Corps in 1962, a member of the first group of volunteers to Ethiopia. John extended his Peace Corps tour for two more years in order to take the job of directing Orchestra Ethiopia after Halim's departure in 1964.

Melaku Gelaw, who played "washent", the flute, in the Orchestra recalls that John was an effective leader who took his job very seriously. "He coached us in rhythms, intonation and in all of the technical skills we needed in order to play well together". Like his predecessor, John composed original pieces for the group, including music to accompany theatrical productions.

In the courses he taught at HSIU, Halim had urged his students on the importance of exploring and appreciating their own, as opposed to Western, musical values and culture. Situating a multi-ethnic troupe of traditional musicians and dancers on campus provided effective reinforcement of this academic philosophy. Twenty cents, the price of a student ticket to Creative Arts Center events, was not beyond the means of most young music lovers, and by the time John Coe conclude his directorship in mid-1966, Orchestra Ethiopia was playing to capacity student audiences.

It remained for the third and last director, Tesfaye Lema, to accomplish what his predecessors had likely not dreamed of giving the Orchestra, as a twentieth-century incarnation of traditional music, the kind of mass appeal that would enable it to compete successfully for the general public's affection with the trendy and immensely popular government sponsored groups of the day, like the imperial Body Guard and Police Bands, with their glittering trumpets and saxophones and their vocalists: Tilahun Gessese, Bizunesh Bekele and Alemayehu Eshete.

When Tesfaye became director in the fall of 1966, Charles Sutton had just come to Ethiopia as a Peace Corps Volunteer and was teaching freshman English to science and engineering students at the Arat Kilo Campus. Intrigued by Ethiopia's traditional instruments and having learned of the existence of an entire orchestra of them at the Creative Arts Center, he applied there to study privately with one of the musicians, Orchestra Ethiopia's lead "mesenqoist", Getamesay Abebe.

Charles sat with Getamesay for weekly "messenqo" lessons in the shade of a palm tree near the entrance to the Creative Arts Center. One day, Charles says, after he had been studying for several months, Tesfaye paused on his way into the building and seemed to listen approvingly as he performed a rendition of "Tezita" (Reminiscence) for his teacher.

At the same time Charles was drawn to the "messenqo", found Ethiopian musicians in droves were forsaking it along with the "krar" and "washent", and turning to instruments and musical styles imported from the West. Urban audiences had little patience for traditional entertainers. Tesfaye considered himself lucky to get a twenty-minute slot for Orchestra Ethiopia in a new year's show during which the Army, Police, and Bodyguard Bands played on for hours. Before the Orchestra could finish three numbers it was hooted from the stage.

Less than a year later, when a young American "messenqo" player (Charles Sutton) improbably materialized, the resourceful director believed he could make use of him to give the sagging prestige of Ethiopian traditional music a much-needed boost.

Thirty years later, in an interview with a reporter from the magazine "Traditions" Tesfaye explained how his assessment of audience psychology had prompted this audacious ploy. It was a new experience for Ethiopians to see a "ferenj" (a white foreigner) appreciating and performing their music. This brought good attention to the Orchestra, especially in those days. Many people were not conscious about their culture. They did not see their music and instruments as valuable. The younger people were more interested in rock music and in learning the guitar and keyboard. When Tesfaye invited Charles to perform with the Orchestra, it was unusual and they woke up and said, "This is good music!" They came to have more respect for their music as a result.