The Last Director of the Ethiopian Research Council Founded by Malaku Bayen 1934

The last Director/Coordinator of the Ethiopian Research Council was internationally known scholar/ethnomusicologist Professor Ashenafi Kebede, who also served as Director of the Center for African American Culture and Professor of Ethnomusicology, African & Afro-American Studies, both at The Florida State University. 

Though renowned in Ethiopia as the Founder/Director of the National (Yared) School of Music, which has graduated practically all the living performing musical and music educators of Ethiopia, Prof. Kebede was internationally known as an ethnomusicological scholar, the first person to receive the Ph.D. degree in his field from the famed Wesleyan University (1971, Middletown, Connecticut); the first African to conduct the famous Hungarian State Orchestra (1967). 

Professor Kebede also served in several prestigious positions at the international level serving as the UNESCO Expert to The Government of Sudan where he founded the Sudanese Institute of Music, Dance and Drama, and Chairman of the Teheran International Conference on Music Education in the Countries of Africa & Asia organized by UNESCO