SINGER AND SONGWRITER MEKLIT HADERO
PLAYS AT REAL ART WAYS JULY 13

Wednesday, July 13, 2011 | 7:30 PM
Advance tickets: $15/$12 Real Art Ways members
Advance sales end Tuesday, July 12, 5 PM
Door tickets: $18/$15 Real Art Ways members
Tickets at realartways.org or 860.232.1006 x222

Hartford, Connecticut - Real Art Ways is pleased to present Meklit Hadero in concert on Wednesday, July 13, 2011. Born in Ethiopia, raised in the U.S. and nurtured by San Francisco's diverse arts scene, singer and songwriter Meklit Hadero has created a music that is all her own. Her influences range wide – from jazz and soul, to hip-hop and art-rock, to folk traditions from the Americas and Africa.

Emerging from her adopted hometown of San Francisco, Meklit attracted national notice with the 2010 release of On a Day Like This… on Porto Franco Records. Hailed by Filter magazine for "[combining] New York jazz with West Coast folk and African flourishes, all bound together by Hadero's beguiling voice," her full-length debut — which also garnered feature-stories from NPR, PBS and National Geographic — brought Meklit's music to a whole new audience. It also announced the arrival, as the San Francisco Chronicle has put it, of "an artistic giant in the early stages."

Born in Ethiopia in the early 1980s, Meklit grew up in Iowa, New York, and Florida. After studying political science at Yale, she moved to San Francisco and became immersed in the city's arts scene. "She sings of fragility, hope and self-empowerment, and exudes all three," wrote a Chronicle reporter after witnessing an early performance in the city's Mission District. "What's irresistible, above all, is her cradling, sensuous, gentle sound. She is stunning."

Named a TED Global Fellow in 2009, Meklit has served as an artist-in-residence at New York University, the De Young Museum, and the Red Poppy Art House. Meklit has also completed musical commissions for the San Francisco Foundation and for theatrical productions staged by Brava! For Women in the Arts. She is the founder of the Arba Minch Collective, a group of Ethiopian artists in diaspora devoted to nurturing ties to their homeland through collaborating with both traditional and contemporary artists there.

Support

Supported by the City of Hartford Arts & Heritage Jobs Grant Program, Pedro Segarra, Mayor.

Corporate, Foundation, and Government Support for Real Art Ways comes from: Greater Hartford Arts Council's United Arts Campaign, Hartford Foundation for Public Giving, Connecticut Commission on Culture & Tourism, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, National Endowment for the Arts, The Wallace Foundation, Ford Foundation, United Technologies, Travelers Foundation, Bank of America, Aetna, Lincoln Financial Group, Edward C. & Ann T. Roberts Foundation, Target, Joseph S. Stackpole Charitable Trust, Ensworth Charitable Trust, Alexander A. Goldfarb Memorial Trust, Fund for Greater Hartford, Larsen Fund, Ellis A. Gimbel Trust, Knox Foundation, The J. Walton Bissell Foundation, Helen M. Saunders Charitable Foundation, NewAlliance Foundation, National Performance Network – Visual Arts Network, Kohn-Joseloff Foundation, It's Only Natural Restaurant, The Artist Resource Trust, Charney Architects, The Aaron Copland Fund for Music, Inc.

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