By : sfchronicle – excerpt
…. Meklit Hadero’s experience of sheltered-in-place motherhood has been shaped by the push and pull of throwing herself into a new job while mourning the loss of her old one. The singer-songwriter was set for a full season of gigs with her Ethio-jazz influenced band, including a showcase performance at California WorldFest in July, all of which were canceled. As her musical vocation evaporated she was settling into her new job as chief of program for Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, a position she took on while pregnant with her son (León, who’s now 9 months old).
Instead of anticipating rescheduled concerts (“What will the live music industry even look like after this?” she says), Hadero has turned her music inward. “Shelter-in-place has made music more something for me and the baby,” she says. “We’re constantly singing together. He sang in tune at 4 months. He’s an insane little musician, incredibly rhythmic. He syncopates vocally.”
Considering that León’s father, Marco Peris Coppola, is the percussionist in Hadero’s band and a founding member of the Balkan brass band Inspector Gadje, the tot’s rhythmic chops shouldn’t come as a surprise. As with all the musical families sheltering in place, the influence of nature and nurture will be harder than ever to tease apart…(more)