Musical journey: lessons begin after piano finally arrives in Ethiopia

Girma Yifrashewa plays on the new piano at Homosha school for girls in September. He was playing at New York’s Carnegie Hall in June. Photograph: Genaye Eshetu/Pharo Foundation

Girma Yifrashewa will never forget the exhilaration of receiving his own piano. It was a surprise gift – and a mammoth task to have it shipped to Ethiopia. He then had an anxious wait at customs for two months and a logistical headache to get it home.

So when the Pharo Foundation came up with the idea of raising funds in London to buy a piano for a girls’ boarding school in north-west Ethiopia, the musician quickly got on board. Pupils at the Homosha school in Benishangul-Gumuz state now have their teaching piano after an arduous journey reminiscent of that of Yifrashewa’s own first instrument almost 30 years before.