LISTEN: Ethiopia's 93-year-old composer-pianist-nun

18 April 2017 - 13:45
By TimesLIVE

Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou is a 93-year-old Ethiopian composer-pianist-nun living in an Orthodox church in Jerusalem.

Guèbrou’s musical career started at the age of six when she was sent to a boarding school in Switzerland to study violin.

She returned to Ethiopia in 1933.

She was a prisoner of war during the Second Italio-Ethiopian War.

Guèbrou became a nun at the age of 19, later studying the religious music of the Ethiopean Orthodox Church.

Fluent in seven languages, Guèbrou is most famous for her solo piano album released in 2006.