Professor Kay Shelemay publishes book on Sentinel Musicians and the Making of the Ethiopian American Diaspora

January 14, 2022

Professor Kay Shelemay, G. Gordon Watts Professor of Music and Professor of Music and African and African American Studies and CAS Executive Committee member, publishes Sing and Sing On: Sentinel Musicians and the Making of the Ethiopian American Diaspora with the University of Chicago Press.

Sing and Sing On Book Cover

A sweeping history of Ethiopian musicians during and following the 1974 Ethiopian revolution. Sing and Sing On is the first study of the forced migration of musicians out of the Horn of Africa dating from the 1974 Ethiopian revolution, a political event that overthrew one of the world’s oldest monarchies and installed a brutal military regime. Musicians were among the first to depart the region, their lives shattered by revolutionary violence, curfews, and civil war. Reconstructing the memories of forced migration, Sing and Sing On traces the challenges musicians faced amidst revolutionary violence and the critical role they played in building communities abroad.

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Kay Kaufman Shelemay

Kay Kaufman Shelemay is the G. Gordon Watts Professor of Music and Professor of Music and African and African American Studies at Harvard University. She is the author or editor of many books, including Soundscapes: Exploring Music in a Changing World and Let Jasmine Rain Down: Song and Remembrance among Syrian Jews, also published by the Press.