The Kukutana Ensemble Performs at Lafayette

     The Kukutana Ensemble, directed by Janie Cole, is an international ensemble that proposes collapsed

time engagement of varying technologies, including a range of traditional African bowed &

percussion instruments in conjunction with live-sampling and intermixed soundscapes to re-imagine

music from pre-colonial Indian Ocean locations.

     They will be performing an original work called Gabriel's Odyssey, based on the earliest surviving

autobiographical account by an enslaved Ethiopian, a Beta Israel Ethiopian Jew, who was kidnapped

as a child from the Ethiopian Highlands, sold into slavery in the Arab world, and had a final

encounter with the Portuguese Inquisition in Goa.

     The ensemble consists of musician-composer-scholars from a wide variety of fields who use tape

composition and acoustic instruments to advance a group collaborative experiment in sonic

archaeology. This event is made possible through support from a Lafayette Arts & Technology

Grant; the Humanities Center; and the Department of Music.

Kukutana Ensemble

Mark Aranha (South Africa), guitarist, composer

Grasella Luigi Bonefeni (Ethiopia), Voice, violin

Bronwen Clacherty (South Africa), percussionist, vibraphonist, composer

Janie Cole (South Africa/ US), voice, researcher, composer

Tesfamichael Yayeh Hussen (Ethiopia), voice masinqo, krar, washint, composer

Cara Stacey (South Africa) Bow player, pianist, composer