In this post-screening panel, sponsored by the International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation, Vancouver-based musician, composer and ethnomusicologist Aram Bajakian will engage in discussions with Eritrean-Ethiopian trumpet player Feven Kidane and Tezeta's director, Aramazt Kalayjian. Artist scholars Parmela Attariwala and Nadia Shihab will also be joining the talk.
The documentary Tezeta tells the story of 40 Armenian Genocide survivors who were adopted by Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie in 1924. These same Genocide survivors would compose Ethiopia's first national anthem, help popularize brass instruments, and in later decades would help spark a jazz fusion revolution that swept the country, immortalized with the popular Ethiopiques record series. Told through first-hand accounts, Tezeta reveals a uniquely Ethiopian musical story that was once lost to memory. The documentary features interviews with important Ethiopian jazz musicians, who speak about the historical significance of Armenians during the music's formative years. At the same time, the film looks to the present and future by following contemporary Armenian-Ethiopian signer Vahé Tilbian. The panel will examine some of the questions that the film poses regarding race, identity and visibility within a contemporary international musical landscape.
Presented with the support of Kevin McNeilly and the UBC branch of The International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation.
Violinist Dr. Parmela Attariwala, born and raised on Treaty 7 territory, has been mesmerized by sound for as long as she can remember, particularly by how un-worded sounds and music carry meaning. She pursued this passion through an undergraduate degree in performance, and postgraduate degrees in ethnomusicology (specializing in Sikh kirtan and Canadian cultural policy, respectively). Over a twenty-five-year sojourn in Toronto, Parmela cultivated an eclectic interdisciplinary practice alongside performances of traditional Western art music, a teaching practice devoted to vulnerable youth, and the release of three Attar Project albums. Since moving to Vancouver in 2019, Parmela has continued to create works that push the boundaries of tradition, with recent commissions including scores for dance, film, mixed media installations and opera. In 2021, Parmela co-founded the online improvisation network, Understory. She is a lecturer in Jazz Studies at Capilano University; and she also works with many local and national presenting and arts service organizations, advocating for equity and ethics in Canadian musicking.
The music of guitarist and composer Aram Bajakian music has been called “a masterpiece” (fRoots, July 2017), “shape-shifting” (FreeJazzCollective, January 2017), and “sometimes delicate, sometimes punishing” (Chicago Reader, January 2018). As a guitarist, “the virtuosic jack of all trades” (Village Voice, May 2015) has toured extensively with Lou Reed, Diana Krall, Madeleine Peyroux, and John Zorn, in performing at many of the world’s greatest venues, including Carnegie Hall, Royal Albert Hall, the Acropolis, L’Olympia, as well as the Montreaux, Newport, Monterey and Antibes jazz festivals, among others. From 2018-2021 Bajakian served as the New Music Curator at Western Front in Vancouver, one of Canada’s leading artist-run centers for contemporary art and new music. Bajakian is currently a PhD candidate in the Department of Ethnomusicology at UBC where his research focuses on the role of music in contemporary and historic Armenian communities.
Aramazt Kalayjian studied at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York where he received his Bachelors in Fine Arts in Communications Design. Kalayjian’s prior film work had focused on advertising before attending the Maysles Institute in East Harlem, centering on studies in independent documentary filmmaking. His first directed music video with music performer,
Vahe, received international recognition in Africa being aired on South Africa’s Channel 0. Kalayjian currently lives in New York and Yerevan working on a screenplay for a taxi driver anthology that weaves a city together through a panoply of taxi driver experiences, as well as a documentary about the global obesity epidemic despite modern medicine and cultural shifts regarding nutrition.
Feven Kidane is an Ethiopian-Eritrean trumpeter and bassist born and raised in the Greater Vancouver region. With an eager spirit and knack for writing music for celebration, contemplation, and sharing, Feven is passionate in her creativity and a skilled executor of musical vision as a bandleader, collaborator, and sideman. She has performed in jazz, spoken word, hip-hop, and free improvisation, taking deep intrigue and interest in learning the traditional musics of her ancestors. Off the bandstand, Feven takes an interest in aromatherapy and Carribbean cooking.
Nadia Shihab is a filmmaker and artist whose work explores the personal, the relational, and the diasporic. Her first feature-length documentary JADDOLAND was awarded five festival jury awards including the Independent Spirit "Truer than Fiction" Award in 2020. Her work has screened internationally at venues which include the Centre Pompidou, Walker Art Center, Berkeley Art Museum, e-flux, Black Star Film Festival, Images Festival, DOXA, Kassel Dokfest and Cairo International Film Festival. Her creative practice is preceded by a decade of work as a community practitioner and affordable housing advocate in the San Francisco Bay Area. She was raised in west Texas by immigrant parents from Iraq and Yemen and is an Assistant Professor in Film in the School for the Contemporary Arts at Simon Fraser University.
