BIo

(SHORT)

Kaethe Hostetter is an American violinist, bandleader, composer, and educator, whose music was shaped as much by immersion as by training. Classically trained and forged in the avant-jazz and improvisation scenes in Boston and New York, many years as a circus musician, and deep forays into a variety of folk traditions, she spent twelve years living and collaborating in Ethiopia, absorbing its melodic systems, song forms, and everyday musical life. Her debut solo album Impressions of Ethiopia transforms that experience into a solo, ritual-like performance for violin, live looping, and electronics, where Ethiopian songs are re-imagined and performed as a one-woman show and often accompanied by projections drawn from Ethiopian textiles and street life.

BIo

(LONG)

KAETHE HOSTETTER's heritage is intellectual off-grid coastal California soup. Her multi-instrumentalist parents were friends with R. Crumb, Tom Lehrer, Paul Bowles; her midwife was Slime Queen, one of Ken Kesey’s Merry Pranksters. She grows up amongst the tall tall redwoods, with a revolving door of filmmakers, storytellers, archivists, experimental chefs, her father’s lutherie shop hosting traveling musicians of all ilks. Striking out from the tripped-out half-camping drugs scene of Santa Cruz in the late 90s, Kaethe goes to the most contrasting place she can think of: Boston. 

The strategy: to arrive cleans-late with just her instrument, and see if she can weasel into the New England freelance classical scene. Finds music friends, punk and DIY community, experimental art, the outlaw bike messengers, circus music, puppeteering, naturally gravitates back to her cultural underbelly roots. Forms an organic 20-piece marching band that tours New England by bike. Living in a semi-legal loft in colorful Dudley Square, starts an unofficial Ethio culture enthusiasts club with friends– collecting cassettes, transcribing music, cooking vats of vegan Ethio glop, hanging with the Eritrean ladies on Green Street. This crew signs with Subpop, and grows into a national touring Ethio groove ensemble, hitting the festival circuit, with sometimes 14 people on the road.

Continues touring, the posse is invited to Addis Ababa, and they land in the midst of what is agreed to be an incredible cultural heyday and economic boom of the only un-imperialized African nation. Swept into the vortex, she’s soon biking around hilly Addis with fiddle and amp, through the rubble of new and rushed construction, as sweaty music clubs start popping up every weekend, she is jamming Ethio stylings with musical legends that have never left, and legends that are reigniting their flame after expat years in Washington DC, Stockholm, Denver, and fresh young talents. Meanwhile begins independent anthropological documenting of the traditional deeper sounds by hanging with all the traditional musicians during the days as they chewed their khat, killing time before work at the nightclub. Shadows annoyingly the man she deems the best masinko [single-string fiddle] player in the land, just hopping in his car and inviting herself everywhere with him as he zooms around the chaotic streets Addis, dodging livestock on the way to recording studios and gigs. Gaining her own voice in this scene, she forms QWANQWA, an experimental/traditional ensemble, joining with the baddest traditional instrumentalists she could find, eventually bringing in a female Azmari vocalist to front the group. Kaethe’s guest spot on Ethiopian singer-songwriter superstar Teddy Afro album and performance in front of 120,000 people brings notoriety and is played on local TV stations and in Ethiopian restaurants worldwide to this day. 

Gurgling political unrest soon becomes fully inflamed civil war, coinciding with 2020’s COVID related international border shutdowns. She flees Addis suddenly for safe harbor at the family homestead back in redwooded Santa Cruz. Three years of living the organic dream gave her time to book a 60 date debut tour of US for QWANQWA, and release of several albums. Her need for a robust cultural ecosystem prompts her move her headquarters to New York, where she currently resides, picking up where she left off with friends in the experimental music scene and circus performers. Addis life never far from her thoughts, she develops a solo body of work called Impressions of Ethiopia: for solo violin & electronic, which is a dreamy electronic multimedia presentation drawing from her experiences in Addis.

Curriculum vitae 

KAETHE HOSTETTER

Violist / Violinist — Composer, Bandleader, Teacher, Agent (performs solo work as “K8A”)

351 Van Brunt St 3R, Brooklyn, NY 11231 | 929-484-5369 | kaethehostetter@gmail.com | www.kaethehostetter.com

TOURS & CONCERTS OF NOTE

Solo

  • Roulette Intermedium, Impressions of Ethiopia (album release), Brooklyn, NY, 2026

  • Kuumbwa Jazz Center, Impressions of Ethiopia (album release), Santa Cruz, CA, 2026

  • Tigermen Den, Impressions of Ethiopia (album release,) New Orleans, LA, 2026

  • Live Solo Show, WFMU, Transpacific Sound Paradise, 2020/2026

  • Residency, Barbès, Brooklyn, November 2025

  • Flushing Town Hall, Global Mashup, Queens, New York, 2024

  • Residency, Barbès, Brooklyn, Spring, 2023

  • Globalquerque World Music Fest, 2023

  • Featured Performance, Chicago Jazz Strings Summit, 2020

  • Solo Experimental Performance alongside filmmaker David Lynch, Boston, 2011

  • Farmers' Market Santa Cruz, 2020–present

QWANQWA

  • Festival Au Tour Des Chords, Saint-Louis, Senegal. 2025

  • 45-date US National Tour, Spring 2024

  • 20-date Europe Tour, Summer 2024

  • 60-date US National Tour, 2022

  • Italy and Switzerland Tour, August 2019

  • Sardinia Tour, September 2018

  • WOMEX Showcase, Katowice, Poland, October 2017

  • Europe: Prague, Berlin, Paris, Geneva, Copenhagen, Fall 2017

  • Europe: Belgium, France, Summer 2016

  • Roskilde, Denmark, July 2016

Debo Band

  • US Tours, including Lincoln Center Out of Doors, Kennedy Center, GlobalFest, Bonnaroo, Bumbershoot, New Orleans Jazz Fest, Festival International de Louisiane, Calgary Folk Festival, Montreal Jazz Fest, Nuits d'Afrique, Chicago World Music Festival, Roskilde, 2008–2019, South by Southwest, Sauti za Busara (Zanzibar), and the Ethiopian Music Festival (Addis Ababa).

  • Lamb Soundtrack

  • Europe Tours: Slovenia, Vienna, Germany, UK, Denmark, 2017

  • Zanzibar, Sauti za Busara, January 2010

Debo Band with Ayalew Mesfin

  • Europe Tour: Holland, October 2019

  • US Tour: Denver, Los Angeles, San Francisco, January 2018

Fred Frith's Gravity Ensemble

  • Moers Festival, Germany — Nijmegen, Holland, 2015

  • Roulette, NYC, 2014

  • Victoriaville, Canada, 2014

The Binoculars

  • Northeast and Canada Album Release Summer Tour 2026

  • Fiddle Tunes, featured performer, 2026

  • Vermont Tour, 2025

  • Americana Fest, 2025

  • Residency at Sunny’s 2024-Present

  • Album Release, Francis Kite Club, LES, NY 2026

Circus / Cirkestra

  • Bindlestiff, A Cardboard and Duct Tape Spectacular, National Tour, 2018

  • Smithsonian Folk Festival, Washington DC, 2017

  • Gardner Museum, Boston, 2007, 2011

  • Circus Smirkus Tour, 2002, 2003, 2007

  • Bindlestiff, From the Gutter to the Glitter, National Tour, 2005

  • Soundtrack, Circus Dreams, 2012

  • Many variety shows in and around New York 2000-present

Juma Sultan

  • Pioneer Works, 2026

  • O+ Festival, Kingston, NY, 2025

DJ K8A

  • WFMU

  • Barbès

PROFESSIONAL TOURING

QWANQWA — Band Leader (2012–Present)

  • Booking and networking for QWANQWA and other bands

  • Organizing all tech and travel arrangements

  • Tour managing

  • Visa processes for all musicians on 60-concert, 3-month tours

  • Financial, bookkeeping, accounting, and taxes for all members

Current & Recent Engagements

  • Eliades Ochoa, Tour Manager

  • QWANQWA, North American Spring Tour, 2024,

  • QWANQWA, North American Tour, 2022

  • QWANQWA, Europe Tour, Summer 2024

  • Bassekou Kouyaté & Ngoni Ba, 2024, 2023

  • Thalia Zedek Band — Violinist; Driving, Tour Managing, Merch, Europe, March–April 2022 (5 weeks back to back)

  • Los Pirhaňas

  • Meridian Brothers

  • Thalia Zedek Band — Driving, Tour Managing, Merch, US, Fall 2022 (3 weeks back to back)

  • Devil Music Ensemble — Driving, Tour Managing, Merch, Europe, 2011 / 2013 / 2017

  • Debo Band — Tour Manager & Merch, 2014, 2018

  • Cirkestra — Tour Manager and Driver, 2011, 2014

  • Bindlestiff Family Cirkus, 2004–2025

  • Nile Project — East Africa Organizer, 2010–2016

  • Juma Sultan

Agent Activities

  • Northeast Agent for Nepantla, World Class Live, and Awesome Company

  • QWANQWA's international agent for US and Europe, 2014–2025

  • Booking, marketing, tour managing, driving, translating (French and Amharic, both directions), merch, accounting, strategizing, routing, merch design, international taxes, international artist visas, logistics, etc.

FILM & MEDIA COMPOSING

  • Composert, Faya Dayi (2021)

  • Composer, full soundtrack, Wof Zerash Coffee (2024)

  • Sundance Film Festival, ASCAP Composer Spotlight, 2021

  • Arranger, Darkon (2006)

CLASSICAL / ORCHESTRAL & CHAMBER MUSIC

  • Freelancing around greater Boston & New York, 2002–current

  • Boston Philharmonic, Principal Viola, under Benjamin Zander, 2002–2010

  • String Orchestra of Brooklyn, Principal Viola, 2019

  • Grace Chorale, Concert Master, 2019

  • Manhattan String Quartet, Assistant Coach: Bartók in Budapest (2005), Verdi in Parma (2008), Smetana in Prague (2015), Haydn in Vienna (2018), Brahms in Bologna (2019)

TEACHING & WORKSHOPS

  • Noel Pointer, Director of String Program, Brooklyn, 2024-present

  • Fiddle Tunes, faculty, Port Townsend, WA, 2026

  • Guest Lecturer, Amherst College, Spring 2025

  • Guest Lecturer, New England Conservatory, Spring 2025

  • Saint Ann's School — Chamber Music Coach, violin & viola, group & individual classes, Brooklyn, 2023–Present

  • Introduction to Ethiopian Music, Labyrinth, San Francisco, 2020–Present

  • Private teaching, violin/viola, all levels and ages, group and individual, 2006–Present

  • Santa Cruz Youth Chamber Strings, 2020–Present

  • World Music Institute: Music of Ethiopia Inside and Out, 2021

  • String Panels and World Music Violin Panels: Milwaukee, Keene State, Old Towne School of Folk Music, Lowell Folk Fest, Montana Folk Festival, Vancouver Folk Festival, Quebec City, 2013–Present

  • Guest Masterclasses, Berklee College of Music, 2006, 2011, 2014

RESEARCH

  • History, uses, and techniques of the Ethiopian Masinko, independent, 2009–Present

  • Anthropological textile research of regional Ethiopian traditions, independent 2012–Present

  • Italian mandolin tradition in the Bay Area, independent, 2018–Present

DISCOGRAPHY

  • Woradj Alle (Impressions of Ethiopia), solo album as K8A, Domino Sound, 2026

  • Double Whammy, The Binoculars, Jalopy Records, 2026

  • Cacciatore di Tesori, WUZZAWAZZEE Industries, 2025

  • The Garden, WUZZAWAZZEE Industries, 2023

  • QWANQWA, Live, WUZZAWAZZEE Industries, 2022

  • QWANQWA, Vol. 3, WUZZAWAZZEE Industries, 2020

  • QWANQWA, Vol. 2, FPE Records, 2017

  • QWANQWA, Vol. 1, FPE Records, 2014

  • Debo Band, Ere Gobez, FPE Records, 2016

  • Debo Band, Debo Band, Sub Pop / Next Ambiance, 2012

  • Lawnmower, with Jim Hobbs, independently released, 2014

  • Cirkestra, Gutter to the Glitter, independently released, 2005

  • Quarantunes, with Dan Moon, independently released, 2021

  • Cirkestra Alice, independently released, 2003

  • Cirkestra 107, independently released, 2018

GRANTS / FELLOWSHIPS / PARTNERSHIPS

  • Jerome Foundation Awarded Artist, Roulette Intermedium, 2026

  • MacArthur Foundation Beneficiary, 2019

  • OneBeat, Found Sound Nation, Dosti Fellow, 2015

  • Zoomix, Artist Partner (Debo Band), 2014

  • Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation Grant Recipient, 2009, 2010

  • Indexical, Artist in Residence, Santa Cruz, 2022

ENTREPRENEURIAL VENTURES

  • WUZZAWAZZEE Industries, Owner/Operator, 2012-2020

  • Errand Boys Courier Service, Owner/Operator, 2006–2009

EDUCATION

  • Longy School of Music, 2001–2003

  • Boston Conservatory, 2004–2005

  • Private Study — Patricia McCarty, Scott Woolweaver, Michelle LaCourse, 2001–2015

LANGUAGE SKILLS

  • English (fluent, native)

  • French (working proficiency)

  • Amharic (working proficiency)