( The Kukutana Ensemble* was launched in 2021 by Dr. Janie Cole out of the University of Cape Town’s project "Re-Centring AfroAsia : Musical and Human Migrations in the Pre-Colonial Period 700-1500 AD" (RAA) as part of the RAA East Africa hub, "East Africa @ the Indian Ocean World Project" (East Africa@IOW) to develop live performances and digital recordings rooted in new repertories of East African music and its historical links to a pre-colonial Indian Ocean World soundscape dating from the 8th to the 17th centuries. These innovative musical narratives combine music, poetry and visual effects, to explore core research themes and geographical locations of the East Africa@IOW project in order to capture an imaginary pre-colonial IOW soundscape. This research focuses on the indigenous and pre-colonial communities and musical cultures of Kenya, Lamu, Mozambique, Tanzania, Madagascar, Zanzibar, the Swahili coast, and Ethiopia, and their historical relations to the Indian Ocean World. It provides insights into the movement of peoples, civilisations and cultures through the impact of war, slavery, trade routes, religion, and aesthetic constellations around ports, polities and kingdoms in order to explore themes of musical and human migrations, transcultural encounters, displacement, identity, faith, religion, and cross-cultural exchanges between East Africa and the Indian Ocean World, including Arabia, Southern India, South East Asia, and Southern Europe.
* "Kukutana" comes from the Swahili word meaning literally "to meet" (related to "kukabiliana", to encounter)
Founder and Executive Director, DR. JANIE COLE (PhD University of London) is a Research Scholar at Yale University’s Institute of Sacred Music and Visiting Professor in Yale’s Department of Music (from July 2023), RAA Research Officer for East Africa (2018-), and a Research Associate at Stanford University’s Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (2022-), specializing in musical culture in the Christian Kingdom of Ethiopia and transcultural encounters with Latin Europe and the early modern Indian Ocean world; Italian music, poetry and theatrical spectacle in the late Renaissance and early Baroque periods; and 20th-century South African music, protest and prisoner resistance during the anti-apartheid struggle. Prior to this, she was a Senior Lecturer (Adjunct) at the University of Cape Town’s College of Music (2015-23). She is currently the founding Renaissance Society of America Discipline Representative in Africana Studies (2019-23) and the founder/executive director of Music Beyond Borders, a platform for public musicology and engaged scholarship. www.musicbeyondborders.net
Scholar Artists
DR. CARA STACEY (composer, piano, voice, budongo, bows) is a South African musician and musicologist. She is a pianist and plays southern African musical bows (umrhubhe, uhadi, makhweyane). Her research field is music in the Kingdom of eSwatini and southern African musical bows. Cara has performed across southern Africa, in the UK, Brazil, Peru, the USA and Switzerland with the likes of ShabakaHutchings, SarathyKorwar, Dan Leavers, Galina Juritz, Beat Keller and MatchumeZango. Cara is a Senior Lecturer in African Music at North-West University.
MARK ARANHA (composer, guitarist) is an Indian musician and PhD candidate at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. His ongoing research on the melodies of the Mappila Muslims of Malabar continues from his MMus (2021) work on Jewish and Mappila histories and song traditions in Kerala, studied in the context of precolonial transoceanic migrations and networks of exchange. Beyond academia, Mark also has over a decade of experience working across geographic and stylistic boundaries as a composer, sideman and producer with musical artists such as Susmit Sen (IN), Sumangala Damodaran (IN), Hanita Bhambri (IN), Abbey Cindi (RSA), Thandeka Mfinyongo (RSA), Lindokuhle Matina (RSA), Cara Stacey (RSA), Bianca Love (USA), and many others.
DR. BRONWEN CLACHERTY (composer, voice, vibraphone, uhadi) is a Lecturer in African Music at the University of Cape Town’s South African College of Music and previously a Postdoctoral Fellow on the RAA project. She holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Cape Town and a Master’s degree in Participatory Arts from Goldsmiths College, University of London. Her RAA research focuses on women’s history in Zanzibar and draws on various sources including oral history and particularly songs and stories.
TESFAMICHAEL YAYEH HUSSEN (composer, voice, masinqo, krar, washint) is a graduate assistant at Addis Ababa University’s Performing and Visual Arts College and the Yared School of Music. He was a music teacher for six years at the Entoto Polytechnic College Music Department. He has wide performance experience working with the Ethiopian children and youth theatre houses in live stage performances, trio groups, the Yared School of Music orchestra and various traditional Ethiopian bands.
GRASELLA LUIGI BONEFENI (voice) is an Ethiopian violinist and singer. She holds a BA degree in Music from Addis Ababa University’s Yared School of Music and is currently a Masters candidate in Arts of Music at the same institution. From 2008 to 2013, she worked as a music teacher at international schools, and since 2014 she has been working as a violin player and a band leader of a string orchestra at the Ethiopian National Theatre.
KRISTY STONE (researcher, teacher, artist, set designer) is a practising artist and PhD candidate in the Department of History at the University of the Western Cape. From 2016-2020 she was an A.W. Mellon Doctoral Fellow at the Centre for Humanities Research (UWC). Her thesis is titled, Affect and art: Encounters with objects of power in South African museum and archival collections. Kristy has a background in Fine Art (BA Hons.), Education and Heritage Studies (MA) from the University of the Witwatersrand. She has worked in museum education for several years and continues to write arts-based training materials for teachers and students.
CONOR RALPHS (artist, curator, designer) received training in Fine Arts at the Michaelis School of Art in Cape Town and a Masters degree in Art Historical Studies from UCT. His work is multi-disciplinary in nature, including painting, photography, interactive installations and research-based interventions. He has exhibited in South Africa, Spain, Germany and Madagascar, exploring the intersection of migration and astronomy. He is the co-founder of the Africa|Nosy Art Exchange (ANAE) developed in Madagascar which seeks to encourage the interaction of artists and the exchange of ideas with the islands surrounding Africa.
MAHSIN BASALAMA (composer, qanun, darbuka) is a Zanzibari musician, educator and arts advocate. Having studied Percussion and Qanun in Zanzibar and Egypt, Mahsin now teaches music in his native Zanzibar and collaborates with other members of the arts community in East Africa, Europe and North America on research and non-profit projects.
