Girma Yifrashewa has been played on NTS over 10 times, featured on 12 episodes and was first played on 24 February 2017.

Girma, born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on October 15th, 1967, learned to play the kirar, a harp-like traditional Ethiopian instrument, early in his youth. At the age of 16, he learned to play the piano, and earned his performance degree after four years of study at the Yared School of Music in Addis Ababa.

With a five-year stipend from the Ethiopian government, he studied music at the State Conservatory of Music in Sofia and received his masters degree. He garnered considerable attention as a concert pianist, and celebrated his largest success in Rome’s Sala Baldini before returning to eastern Africa in 1995.

Girma’s artistic emphasis has been on the interpretation of romantic and impressionist repertoires, especially the piano works of Schumann, Schubert and Debussy. He also demonstrates a special relationship with the works of Bach, Mozart and Bethoven.

With the aid of scholarships from the British and German governments he studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London in 1997 and at the Felix-Mendelson-Bartholdy University for Music and Theater in Leipzig in 1999.

Between 1995 and 2001, Girma worked as a piano instructor at the Yared School of Music in Ethiopia. His special concern today is to spread both Ethiopian and classical music throughout the African continent and beyond. During his free time, he continues to teach piano to students from all age groups.

Girma created numerous compositions and wrote several musical arrangements, among them “The Shepherd with the Flute”, based on the composition of Professor Ashenafi Kebede. To this day he has recorded three CDs: “The Shepherd with the Flute” (2001), “Me leya Keleme” (2003) and “Elilta” (2006)

He has given concerts in Ethiopia as well as numerous other countries (among them Egypt, Djibouti, Rwanda, Burundi, Kenya, Uganda, Mauritius, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Lesotho, South Africa, the Seychelles, Zambia, Malawi, Bulgaria, Italy, Germany, England, France and Australia)

In 2005 Girma performed with the Youth Symphony Orchestra of Leipzig at concerts held in Germany and Ethiopia in commemoration of the 100th Anniversary of the commencement of German-Ethiopian diplomatic relations. On the program were Beethovens piano concerto #2 and Girma’s compositions, which were well-received.