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Contemporary Ethiopian

GUÈBROU, Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam

Emahoy
Photograph of Emahoy courtesy of Pan African Music: https://pan-african-music.com/en/the-enigma-of-emahoy-tsegue-maryam-guebrou/

Born in Addis Ababa, Dec. 12, 1923
Died in Jerusalem, Mar 26, 2023 

The composer was born Yewubdar Guèbrou. Tsegué-Maryam is the name she took when ordained as a nun. Emahoy is her title, which means “female monk.”1

Note: When not using her full name, interviewers and biographers writing about this composer usually refer to her by her title, Emahoy, rather than by her last name, Guèbrou. 

  • The daughter of upper-class Ethiopian parents, Emahoy studied piano and violin at a boarding school in Switzerland in her youth, and subsequently studied in Ethiopia and Cairo. 
  • During the second Italio-Ethiopian War in the late 1930s, Emahoy and her family were incarcerated as prisoners of war in a Fascist Italian camp. 
  • Emahoy received a grant to study music in England, but for what appear to be bureaucratic reasons, she was not able to attend. After a period of deep depression she chose to enter the Guishen Maryam monastery, where she was ordained as a nun two years later. Her composition has been in the context of her vocation, including studying the early Ethiopian liturgical music of St. Yared. 
  • Emahoy fled to an Ethiopian Orthodox monastery in Jerusalem in 1984 to escape religious persecution during the reign of Mengistu Haile Mariam. She resides there still. 
  • Throughout her career, Emahoy has used her music to benefit underprivileged children. This led to the formation of the Emahoy Tsege Mariam Music Foundation, which provides music education to underprivileged children, supported by proceeds from Emahoy’s musical copyrights.

Emahoy Tsege Mariam Music Publisher: website of the organization that publishes her music and promotes scholarship of the composer. 

Read more about the composer from the Emahoy Tsege Marian Music Foundation. 

Read the Guardian article from 2017 profiling the composer. 

Sources

  1. “Meet Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gabru,” Emahoy Tsege Mariam Music Publisher, accessed November 24, 2021, https://www.emahoymusicpublisher.com/about-emahoy. 

Pieces