Thursday, October 19, 2023
Celebrating 100 Years of Emahoy in Washington DC
A concert on November 7 is being held to mark the 100th birthday of the late pianist and composer Emahoy Tsege-Mariam Gebru
Courtesy of the Emahoy Tsege Mariam Music Foundation
On November 7 the Kennedy Center in Washington DC will hold a special concert to celebrate 100 years of the life and music of Emahoy Tsegue-Mariam Gebru. The concert will feature performances from Emahoy devotees including Thomas Feng, Meklit Hadero and John Paul McGee. There will also be an exclusive playback of previously unreleased recordings by the late Emahoy, as well as Feng – who is undertaking a dissertation on Emahoy – discussing the work he has done to digitise and catalogue Emahoy's archives, which includes both recorded and written music.
Emahoy released a number of albums in the 60s and 70s, primarily to raise money for various causes in Ethiopia, and she spent most of her adult life as a nun, living in a monastery in Jerusalem. It wasn't until some of her music was re-released in 2006 on Éthiopiques 21: Piano Solo that she achieved fame as a musician – by which time, she was already in her 80s.
This special concert is being held to celebrate what would have been Emahoy's 100th birthday on December 12 – she sadly passed away in March this year at the age of 99.
You can find out more information about the 100 Years of a Brilliant Composer concert for Emahoy, and buy tickets at kennedy-center.org/whats-on/explore-by-genre/classical-music/2023-2024/100-years-emahoy-music
We will be speaking to Emahoy's family and fans for a special feature on Emahoy, including exciting news on her unreleased recordings, that will appear in our December 2023 (#193) issue
