Culture
Tezeta: A Celebration of Ethiopian-Armenian Musical Culture
The popular Ethiopian song form, “Tezeta,” shares the name of Aramazt Kalayjian’s documentary on the Ethio-Armenian contributions to the musical culture of Ethiopia. The documentary features interviews with Ethiopian-Armenians and ethnic Ethiopians alike, concert footages, and archival footage and photographs. Kalayjian aims to bring the story of the Ethiopian-Armenians to a wide audience, using the universal language of music. Tezeta (meaning nostalgia or ‘garodes’ in Armenian) has a “beautiful, haunting, and addictive quality that touches the heart and soul in a very unique way,” explains the filmmaker.
Already a subscriber?Log in here
This story is FREE for you...
Create a free account to access this and four more articles, and get more sent to you with our e-newsletter.By submitting your email address you agree for Hairenik Association, Inc. to send you communication by email.
Not mentioned was Dr. Daniel Stepanian and Mr. Berj Yerzengatzian who also were kind enough to sit with me for interviews and share some of their memories and hopes. Thank you for a great interview. I’m hoping that the next phase ends with as much success as the last.
There’s a very interesting article about Nerses nalbandian at the here below site:
http://www.hemispheresmagazine.com/2012/06/01/the-ballad-of-addis-ababa/
There is a correction to the last name of one of the families. The last name is Madatyan not Madouchian. Thank you.
Thank you for this. I saw the documentary at the AA Film Festival. Most enlightening. Congratulations is in order. If you will permit a couple of observations: a) it was a little long – started dragging towards the end. b) the historic section was excellent but too short. You had a very interesting and informative section – please elaborate in any future publications. I understand you may be publishing this on YouTube. Please do it a.s.a.p. – if you’re thinking of delaying because you wish to recover expenses by showing it at fundraising events, maybe I can help this, to expedite the publishing on YouTube as the Ethio Armenian community is spread out across the globe so they would definitely love to have access.
Levon, thank you so much for your feedback and review of our film. We will eventually be releasing the film to broad public either through a distributor that lands us at platforms like Netflix, Amazon, AppleTV+ or Roku, and if that doesn’t pan out we have a strategy for releasing on online studios like YouTube or Vimeo, as you mentioned. I was so grateful to have met with you after the screenings and spent time together during my stay there, with your help and Garbis Korajian’s support, we were able to schedule the additional screenings at The Urban Center and Ethiopian National Theater. Thank you again, and looking forward to screening in Montreal over the coming year.