Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou ( Gəʿəz ፅጌ ማርያም ገብሩ; born Yewubdar Gebru, December 12, 1923) is an

Ethiopian Ethiopians are the native inhabitants of Ethiopia, as well as the global diaspora of Ethiopia. Ethiopians constitute several component ethnic groups, many of which are closely related to ethnic groups in neighboring Eritrea and other parts of ...

nun A nun is a woman who vows to dedicate her life to religious service, typically living under vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience in the enclosure of a monastery or convent.''The Oxford English Dictionary'', vol. X, page 599. The term is o ...

known for her piano playing and compositions.The Story of the Wind
Ethan Iversons jazz music reviews

Biography

Guèbrou was born as Yewubdar Gebru in

Addis Ababa Addis Ababa (; am, አዲስ አበባ, , new flower ; also known as , lit. "natural spring" in Oromo), is the capital and largest city of Ethiopia. It is also served as major administrative center of the Oromia Region. In the 2007 census, t ...

, on December 12, 1923, to a wealthy Amhara family. At the age of six she was sent to a boarding school in Switzerland, where she studied violin. In 1933 she returned to Ethiopia, where she was a civil servant and singer to

Haile Selassie Haile Selassie I ( gez, ቀዳማዊ ኀይለ ሥላሴ, Qädamawi Häylä Səllasé, ; born Tafari Makonnen; 23 July 189227 August 1975) was Emperor of Ethiopia from 1930 to 1974. He rose to power as Regent Plenipotentiary of Ethiopia (' ...

. During the

Second Italo-Ethiopian War The Second Italo-Ethiopian War, also referred to as the Second Italo-Abyssinian War, was a war of aggression which was fought between Italy and Ethiopia from October 1935 to February 1937. In Ethiopia it is often referred to simply as the Itali ...

she and her family were prisoners of war and were sent by the Italians to the prison camp on the Italian island of

Asinara Asinara is an Italian island of in area. The name is Italian for "donkey-inhabited", but it is thought to derive from the Latin "sinuaria", and meaning sinus-shaped. The island is virtually uninhabited. The census of population of 2001 lists o ...

and later to

Mercogliano Mercogliano is an Italian town and ''comune'' in the province of Avellino, Campania, southern Italy. Geography Mercogliano is a hill town located near the western suburb of Avellino and below the mount Partenio (or Montevergine). The municipality ...

, near Naples. After the war Guèbrou studied under the Polish violinist Alexander Kontorowicz in Cairo. Kontorowicz and Guèbrou returned to Ethiopia where Kontorowicz was appointed as musical director of the band of the Imperial Body Guard. Guèbrou was employed as an administrative assistant. Her first record was released in 1967. The Emahoy Tsege Mariam Music Foundation has been set up to help children in need both in Africa and in the

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

metro area to study music. In April 2017 Guèbrou was the subject of a

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...

documentary, introduced by Kate Molleson, entitled ''The Honky Tonk Nun''.

Music

A compilation of Guèbrou's work was issued on the

Éthiopiques ''Éthiopiques'' is a series of compact discs featuring Music of Ethiopia, Ethiopian singers and musicians. Many of the CDs compile songs from various singles and albums that Amha Records, Kaifa Records and Philips, Philips-Ethiopia released during ...

record label. She also appeared on ''The Rough Guide to the Music of Ethiopia, ''and'' The Rough Guide to African Lullabies.'' Her music has been described as melodic blues piano with rhythmically complex phrasing. For three decades she lived a reclusive life with only rare performances including one at the Jewish Community Center in

on July 12, 2008. Three tribute concerts were held in Jerusalem in 2013 to mark her 90th birthday and a compilation of her musical scores was released.

In Popular Media

In 2019, an ad campaign entitled 'Coming Home' for Amazon’s Echo Auto and Echo Smart Speaker created by advertising agency Wongdoody featured a song by Guebrou titled 'Homesickness'. Her music was featured in the soundtrack of the 2020 documentary ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...

''. Two of her compositions were also featured in the 2021 Netflix movie '' Passing'': 'The Homeless Wanderer' (used in the official trailer) and 'The Last Tears of a Deceased'.

References

External links

'The extraordinary life of Ethiopia's 93-year-old singing nun'
published by ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'', 17 April 2017
"Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou"
published by ''

Boing Boing ''Boing Boing'' is a website, first established as a zine in 1988, later becoming a group blog. Common topics and themes include technology, futurism, science fiction, gadgets, intellectual property, Disney, and left-wing politics. It twice won ...

'', 19 March 2010 {{DEFAULTSORT:Guebrou, Emahoy Tsegue-Maryam 1923 births Living people Ethiopian Oriental Orthodox Christians People from Addis Ababa 20th-century pianists Ethiopian nuns 20th-century Christian nuns Oriental Orthodox nuns Ethiopian composers 20th-century composers 20th-century women composers 21st-century composers 21st-century women composers 20th-century women pianists 21st-century women pianists