The Brass Band of the King: Armenians in Ethiopia

In 1924, the crown prince and future emperor of Ethiopia, Ras Täfäri, on a visit to Jerusalem, called on forty Armenian orphans who had survived the genocide of 1915-1916 to form his empire's royal brass band. The conductor, who was also Armenian, composed the first official anthem of the Ethiopian state.


Drawing on this highly symbolic event, and following the history of the small Armenian community in Ethiopia, in this book Boris Adjemian shows how it operated on the margins of political s...