BY STAFF REPORTER
Saddened to hear of the death of the eminent Ethiopian nun, violinist, classical pianist and composer, Emahoy Tsige Mariam Guèbrou in Jerusalem at age 100.
Emahoy Tsige Mariam was born as Yewubdar Gebru in Addis Ababa, on 12 December 1923, and was the daughter of Kentiba Gebru Desta, former Lord Mayor of both Gondar and Addis Ababa, and one of the pre-eminent western educated intellectuals of his day. At the age of six young Yewubdar was sent to a boarding school in Switzerland, where she studied violin.
In 1933 she returned to Ethiopia, where she worked in the civil service and occasionally played violin and piano at the Emperor’s court functions.During the Second Italo-Ethiopian War she and her family were seized as prisoners of war and were sent by the Italians to the prison camp on the Italian island of Asinara and later to Mercogliano, near Naples. After the war Guèbrou studied under the Polish violinist Alexander Kontorowicz in Cairo and lived with him and his wife.
Due to her health being affected by the climate in Cairo, Mr. and Mrs. Kontorowicz along with Yewubdar Guèbrou returned to Ethiopia where Kontorowicz was appointed as musical director of the Imperial Guard. Yewubdar was employed as Kontowicz’ assistant. However, she was offered an opportunity to study at a prominent music academy in London but was denied permission to do so by the authorities at that time who perhaps didn’t regard classical music as a priority.
Deeply affected by this, Yewubdar isolated herself, and refused food for 12 days. Then, at the young age of 19, Yewubdar snuck away from her family home and entered the Gishen Debre Kerbe monastery in northern Wollo and two years later took vows as a nun. She assumed the title of Emahoy (Great Mother) customary for nuns, and began to use her baptismal name, becoming Emahoy Tsige Mariam Geberu.
Eventually Emahoy Tsige Mariam returned to Addis Ababa and her family and began to focus on her piano playing and composing. She also lived in Gondar in the 1960s where she studied Ethiopian ecclesiastic music in the tradition of St. Yared. Emahoy Tsige Mariam released her first album of her compositions in 1967 with the proceeds going to help orphans and impoverished students of Church music in Gondar and elsewhere.
At the same time she worked as admin in the Patriarchate in Addis Ababa. Following the revolution of 1974, Emahoy and her family found themselves targeted as aristocrats close the fallen monarchy, and so following the death of her mother in 1984 Emahoy Tsige Mariam entered the Ethiopian Monastery in Jerusalem where she remained for the rest of her life. Emahoy Tsige gained international recognition when westerners “discovered” her music when the Éthiopiques Volume 21: Ethiopia Song was released in 2006.
She appeared on the 2012 album The Rough Guide to the Music of Ethiopia, and the 2011 album The Rough Guide to African Lullabies. The Emahoy Tsege Mariam Music Foundation was set up to help children in need both in Africa and in the Washington, D.C. metro area to study music.
Three tribute concerts were held in Jerusalem in 2013 to mark her 90th birthday and a compilation of her musical scores was released. In April 2017 Guèbrou was the subject of a BBC Radio 4 documentary, introduced by Kate Molleson, entitled The Honky Tonk Nun. (A very odd title as her music was classically based and there was nothing “Honky Tonk” or “folksy” about it.) Emahoy Tsige Mariam was a national treasure whose contribution to Ethiopian music can never be overstated. May she rest in peace, and may her memory be eternal.
The Ethiopian Herald march 30/2023
