Tsege Mariam Gebru: Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru [MISSISSIPPI]

Why you'll love it

This Mississippi Records collection gathers sides from her 1963 and 1970 LPs and a 1996 CD in a sleeve with gold foil details. Her piano pieces have since turned up in the films Passing, Time and C'mon C'mon.

This edition

• Gold foil cover details
• Recordings from 1963, 1970 and 1996

About the album

Few composers have had a life quite like this one. Born Yewubdar Gebru in Addis Ababa in 1923, she studied piano and violin at a Swiss boarding school as a girl, played for Emperor Haile Selassie, became a nun in 1944 and took the name Tsege Mariam, then spent her later decades at a monastery in Jerusalem, writing music until she died there at 99.

Her piano style is hers alone: Ethiopian pentatonic scales played with the rolling, rubato touch of a European salon pianist, with echoes of blues and stride. Side one comes from her 1963 German LP, with the waltzing "Mothers Love" and the aching "Homesickness," while side two moves from the 1970 hymn record ("Jordan River Song," "Golgotha") to later recordings like "Evening Breeze" and "Song Of Abayi." Listeners have compared her to Chopin, Satie and Professor Longhair in the same breath, and somehow all three comparisons fit.

Proceeds from her early records went to help children, and her foundation still funds music education today. A BBC Radio 4 documentary called her The Honky Tonk Nun, which is easily the finest job title we've come across.

Also at Kops: more Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru on vinyl · browse World

Tracklist

Listen

On Mississippi Records (cat# MRP-099).