{"id":69134,"date":"2021-01-12T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-01-12T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/?p=69134"},"modified":"2023-03-28T15:10:44","modified_gmt":"2023-03-28T13:10:44","slug":"the-enigma-of-emahoy-tsegue-maryam-guebrou","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/the-enigma-of-emahoy-tsegue-maryam-guebrou\/","title":{"rendered":"The enigma of Emahoy Tsegu\u00e9-Maryam Gu\u00e8brou \u1345\u130c \u121b\u122d\u12eb\u121d \u1308\u1265\u1229"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Living quietly in a small cell of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church in Jerusalem, Emahoy Tsegu\u00e9-Maryam Gu\u00e8brou spends most of her time with God and her piano. A classically trained maestro whose life story arcs and arcs again, her enigmatic music came to worldwide attention thanks to Francis Falceto\u2019s Ethiopiques<\/em> <\/strong>series. However, among the big bands of swinging Addis and the Ethio-Jazz of the golden age of Ethiopian music, Emahoy\u2019s compositions defy genre (and some other pedantic rules of music theory) hushing the listener into awed silence and peace with their beauty and virtuosity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was the experience Israeli pianist and sound artist Maya Dunietz, a composer of immersive sound experiences for The Venice Biennale and Centre Georges Pompidou, had the first time she heard Emahoy\u2019s lullaby-like compositions fifteen years ago.Dunietz was so overcome by Emahoy\u2019s alchemy of classical airs with Ethiopian modes and pentatonic runs that she resolved to search for the enigmatic nun, a story she narrated for me earlier this month from Tel Aviv.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I was just caught in the magic of her sound. I\u2019d never heard anything like the perception of time in her music – these classical structures with an African accent was a combination I\u2019d never heard before. It was so truthful, so honest. I read the liner notes of the CD and the last detail it gives is that she lives in a monastery in Jerusalem. And since I live 45 minutes away I decided to go find her.”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Emahoy Tsegue\u0301\u2011Maryam Gue\u0300brou \u00a9 Gali Tibbon (All rights reserved)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The Debre Genet or “Sanctuary of Paradise” monastery on Ethiopia Street had been Emahoy\u2019s home since the eighties. In a life shaped by exile, both political and self imposed, the story of how Emahoy came to be living a monastic life in Jerusalem reads like a novel, and perhaps explains the sweet sadness in her music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Born into a wealthy Addis family in 1923, at the age of six years old Emahoy was sent to Switzerland to study violin where she first came under the spell of classical piano. Returning to Ethiopia in the 1930s, with the coming of the Second Italo-Ethiopian war, the prodigal pianist became a prisoner of war and was sent along with her family to the prison island of Asinara off the Sardininian coast. Afterwards she spent time in Egypt where she continued her musical training before returning to Ethiopia in time for the sixties where she was part of a fashionable high society, mingling with and playing for Emperor Haile Selassie who helped release her first record in 1967. This epoch was good for the cosmopolitan Emahoy who was the first woman to work in the Ethiopian Civil Service and spoke 7 languages which made the next chapter of Maya Dunietz\u2019s story all the more beguiling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“So we went there (The monastery where Emahoy lives) and knocked on the door and in the beginning she claimed to not be able to speak any language! when in fact she knows like 7 or 8 of them (laughs). But the atmosphere got warmer. We explained we were musicians and asked what she was working on and if we could take a look at her notebook and play a few notes. She liked how I played her music from the first moment. She told me \u2018I like how you do it – you don\u2019t put too much pedal.\u2019 People put too much pedal she always says and she\u2019s so right!  So it was then that she really opened up and started to tell us about her experience as a musician in this monastery context and how they don\u2019t really understand what she\u2019s doing and why it\u2019s important. From there it became a very deep conversation about music.<\/em>“<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So how did the now octogenarian Emahoy make the journey from swinging Addis to a convent? The story goes that Emahoy had been offered a scholarship to The Royal Academy of Music in London but for reasons unknown was prevented from taking up the offer. Inconsolable and bereft she fasted for two weeks, and was even administered her last rites only to revive with the epiphany that she would leave behind music and dedicate her life to God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Emahoy Tsegu\u00e9 Maryam Gu\u00e8brou, aged 23. Photograph: Kate Molleson (All rights reserved)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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For ten years Emahoy lived barefoot in a remote hilltop monastery in Ethiopia before returning to music, but not to the Addis of her youth. Instead Emahoy left for Israel and took up residence in Debre Genet where Maya\u2019s story continues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“So I left her my number on the notebook and said call anytime. Between one and two years passed, and she called me. She summoned me in fact, she said \u2018Maya I need your help. Come!\u2019 It was a very odd call, I thought she was pranking me! So when I got there she handed me three Air Ethiopia bags from the fifties all crumpled and they contained all of her  manuscripts, in a big mess! And she said \u2018I\u2019m ready. But I don\u2019t know how to start so I want you to do it.\u2019 So I took it home and started to decipher what\u2019s going on and I realised It\u2019s a crazy archeological job. There were dates in both the Ethiopian calendar and Roman calendar and none of the pages were numbered. Many of her manuscripts were also written more like a memo to self. So I had to work out the ideal way to notate it so anyone could sit down and play from the book and it would sound as it should, and what does that mean anyway?” (laughs)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Emahoy\u2019s motivation for publishing her life\u2019s work was to set up a foundation for children in Addis Ababa (which now also supports music education in Washington DC) and the collaboration Maya and Emahoy embarked upon has continued the revival of Emahoy\u2019s discography. That said, Emahoy\u2019s music remains a rare thing, figuratively and literally as Maya relates; “So we started this process and I realised I needed some help and started looking for some partners. And I found this amazing group of people – The Jerusalem season of culture festival. And they took this project under their umbrella and we began creating this book with 12 pieces for piano. But it went out of print super fast! and now so many people are asking for it again.<\/em>“<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At their first meeting Emahoy also told Maya that it was her dream to have one of her pieces arranged for orchestra, and with the help of the Jerusalem Season of Culture Maya organised a grand setting of Emahoy\u2019s work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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