About
Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru
A Devotee
Young Yewubdar secretly fled Addis Ababa at the age of 24 to enter the Gishen Mariam monastery in the Wello region where she had once before visited with her mother. She served two years in the monastery and was ordained a nun at the age of 26. She took on the title Emahoy and her name was changed to Tsege Mariam. There was no piano at Gishen, so Emahoy would travel back and forth between the monastery and Addis Ababa, playing the piano at her family’s home until deep into the night. She went on to write many compositions for the piano, organ, and her own voice.
Her Vision
In the early 1960s, Emahoy lived in Gondar and immersed herself in the religious music of St Yared, composer, and father of Mahlet, the early Ethiopian religious musician. She attended the Liturgy and made extensive efforts to learn the music herself. On her daily trips to and from the church, she came across young students in Liturgy known as "yekolo temari" One day she asked why these young people sleep outdoor by the church gate. She was told they beg for food and lodging and are homeless while they pursue their education with the church. Emahoy was deeply moved by the sacrifices these young people made to study the Mahlet. “Although I did not have money to give them, I was determined to use my music to help these and other young people to get an education,” Emahoy told Alula Kebede in her interview on his Amharic radio program on the Voice of America.
Her Childhood
Yewubdar Gebru was born in Addis Ababa on December 12, 1923 to a privileged family. Her father Kentiba Gebru and her mother Kassaye Yelemtu both had a place in high society. Yewubdar was sent to Switzerland at the age of six along with her sister Senedu Gebru. Both attended a girls' boarding school where Yewubdar took violin lessons.
She gave her first violin recital at the age of ten. She returned to Ethiopia in 1933 to continue her studies at the Empress Menen Secondary School. In 1937 young Yewubdar and her family were taken prisoners of war by the Italians and deported to the island of Asinara, north of Sardinia, and later to Mercogliano near Naples.
After the war Yewubdar resumed her musical studies in Cairo, under a Polish violinist named Alexander Kontorowicz. She also took piano lessons with a “Polish master” whose name she later forgot. Yewubdar returned to Ethiopia accompanied by Ms. Kontorowicz and she served as an administrative assistant in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and later as a secretary in the Imperial Body Guard. Unfortunately Yewubdar lost touch with Alexander Kontorowicz and found out years later that he had been teaching music in Addis Ababa without having reached out to her.
Musical Achievements
Emahoy's first and second record was released in Germany in 1963 with the help of Emperor Haile Selassie. In 1972 she released two more recordings: the first raised funds for an orphanage for children of soldiers who died fighting at war, founded by her sister, Desta Gebru; the second raised money for the Ethiopian church in Jerusalem. In keeping with this tradition, EMF gives disadvantaged children access to music lessons. Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru donated her previously published and unpublished music for the use of the EMF to raise funds for grants and scholarships.
The Golden Years
Emahoy left Ethiopia following her mother's death in 1984 and fled to Jerusalem, Israel because socialist doctrine in Ethiopia during the reign of dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam attacked her religious beliefs. Emahoy’s most popular collection of songs, Ethiopiques 21, was released in 2006, and in 2008 she played a rare concert in DC to benefit the newly-founded Emahoy Tsege Mariam Music Foundation. In 2013, Jerusalem Season of Culture hosted concernts in commemoration of Emahoy’s 90th birthday. She passed away in 2023 at the age of 99. Recordings of Emahoy’s compositions are still being published, and her legacy endures through the work of the Foundation. Around the world her story and music continues to be discovered and celebrated.