Addis adagio Pianist plays a key role in musical adventure

Girma Yifrashewa will never forget the exhilaration of getting his own piano - a surprise gift.

- Saeed Kamali Dehghan

It was a mammoth task to ship it to Ethiopia, a two-month wait at customs and a logistical headache to get it home.

So when the Pharo Foundation wanted to raise funds in London to buy a piano for a girls' boarding school in north-west Ethiopia, the musician quickly got on board. Pupils at the Homosha school in BenishangulGumuz state now have their teaching piano after an arduous journey reminiscent of that of Yifrashewa's first piano almost 30 years before.

"Music has helped me to live my dream, or I can even say live beyond my wildest dreams," he said.

Yifrashewa has had a remarkable career, playing at New York's Carnegie Hall in June, and he is now director of the Ashenafi Kebede performing arts centre at Addis Ababa University. Last month, in a hall packed with students and their families, he played a combination of European and Ethiopian music on the piano from London, which had finally arrived.