Fast 4: Meklit
Here are 4 quick facts to get you ready for Spring 2016’s Artist-In-Residence, Meklit!
She grew up all over the place
Meklit was born in Ethiopia and left when she was 2. She and her family briefly went to Germany before coming to the United States. She’s lived in Washington D.C., Iowa, New York, Florida, Seattle, and now she lives in San Francisco, where she’s been for the last 10 years.
She’s been a featured TEDx speaker
Meklit was named a TED Global Fellow in 2009 and gave a TED Talk this past November. In her talk, titled “The Unexpected Beauty of Everyday Sounds,” she speaks about the sounds of language and the everyday world can create music.
An inspiration to young women
In a recent interview, Meklit stated that “music should be inspired by the widest of possible life experiences, from heartbreak, to the birth of a child, to the natural phenomenon in the world around us.” She also wants her music to play a big role in “influencing young women, especially from Africa and the African Diaspora to find their unique voice and to sing it loud! We need more of those voices in the public dialogue,” she stated.
Meklit helped found “The Nile Project”
The Nile Project was founded in August 2011 by Egyptian ethnomusicologist Mina Girgis and Meklit with a mission to address the Nile basin’s cultural and environmental challenges using an innovative approach that combines music, education and an enterprise platform. The Nile Project curates collaborations among musicians from the 11 Nile countries to expose audiences to the cultures of their river neighbors. These musical experiences foster cross-cultural empathy and inspire environmental curiosity to shift the Nile from a divisive geopolitical argument to a uniting East-African conversation.
Don’t miss Meklit’s performance at the Lafayette Theater on Saturday, February 27th!