Born Yewubdar Gebru on December 12, 1923, Ethiopian pianist, composer, and nun Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou is known for her free-spirited piano playing of compositions where notes flit with ease up and down pentatonic (five-note) scales. Her playing is heartfelt and instinctive, skillfully moving around the keyboard without a hitch. The scales heard in much of her music are representative of her Ethiopian culture which hails four pentatonic scales, the Ambassel, Tezita, Anchihoye and Bati scales, developed in Ethiopia and used in jazz and church music from the region. These scales often help create a sentimental tone in music, like the Tezita scale, a name which literally means “nostalgia” or “longing,” a sense felt in many of Guèbrou’s compositions, including “The Song of the Sea.”
Music was always a part of Guèbrou’s life, beginning in her youth when she was sent to a Swiss boarding school to study the violin at the age of six, where she received a classical music education. Her life was upended, though, in 1936 during Mussolini’s invasion of Ethiopia when three members of her family were killed. During this time Guèbrou and her family were sent to an Italian prison camp on the island of Asinara. Afterwards, Guèbrou found her way to Cairo to study the violin under the tutelage of Polish violinist Alexander Kontorowicz and she eventually returned to Ethiopia with Kontorowicz.
Back in her home country, Guèbrou became a singer for and civil servant to Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie, also making her the first female Ethiopian civil servant. Selassie even helped Guèbrou release her first piano record in 1967.
Guèbrou was offered a scholarship to The Royal Academy of Music in London, however was barred from entering for reasons that are unclear. Devastated, she fasted for two weeks and was even given her last rites before Guèbrou decided to change course and become a nun. She lived quietly and barefoot in a remote monastery in Ethiopia for ten years before playing music again.
Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou spoke at least seven languages and until her death on March 26, 2023, continued playing piano in a small room in an Ethiopian Orthodox Church in Jerusalem. Since her first piano release in 1967, Guèbrou donated all of her proceeds from it and subsequent records to a local orphanage. You can find her piano pieces on the Ethiopiques label.
Here is “Mother’s Love” from the album Éthiopiques 21: Piano Solo by Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou.
The Emahoy Tsege Mariam Music Foundation was created to provide music education for children in underserved communities. On the foundation’s website, Guèbrou is quoted saying “After I asked God for His will, I determined to publish and use the money to fund children and young people for their education.” On the Emahoy Tsege Mariam Music Foundation site you can also stay updated on the progress of her life’s documentary, Labyrinth of Belonging.
