Emahoy Tsegue-Maryam Guebrou (Ge’ez ጽጌ ማርያም ገብሩ) was born in Addis Ababa in 1923 in an aristocratic family. (Her given name was Yewubdar, Amharic for “the most beautiful one“)

According to Kalkidan Yibeltal at the BBC, she was sent to Switzerland in a boarding school as a kid and learn Classical Music on the piano. Her and her sister are thought to be the first Ethiopian women to study in the West.

At 21, Guebrou took the orders, shaved her head, went barefoot and became a nun on a hilltop monastery. She changed her name to Tsegue-Maryam. Emahoy is a religious honorific.

Her music is like no other, completely Classical and totally Ethiopian at once. Find more of her work in the essential collection Ethiopiques.

She sings too:

.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/04/17/jerusalem-emahoy-tsegue-maryam-guebrou-music-review, Fair use, en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=77599666