La Melodia: Sephardic Jewish Music and Culture from the Iberian Peninsula
Friday, March 27th at 6:00 PM at Congregation Beth Israel
In this fusion of enthusiastic performance and classroom lesson, a group of scholar-musicians blend their personal heritage with academic research to recreate Jewish music from Ottoman cities like Salonica and Oran, the Kingdom of Morocco, and even the early United States. Skeptical of “pure” or “authentic” tradition, they present Sephardic culture as a work-in-progress connecting the old fiddle with some rockin’ electric guitar!
Biographies
Ethan Cohen is a History PhD candidate at Temple University and an award-winning teacher of undergraduates and children from New York to Philly. His research dwells on the centrality of colonialism to European history and the binary between Europe and non-Europe which remains strong today.
Elliot Beck is a versatile percussionist, teacher, and organizer. His current musical homes are sweaty, Balkan-inspired dance parties and klezmer wedding horas with West Philadelphia Orchestra and drumming for the country outfit Robert M Davidson and the Broken Hearts Band.
You can register for Rabbi Miller’s Culture in Rhyme: A Havadallah Event with Singing and a Discussion of the Iberian Muslim Influence on Jewish Sabbath Table Songs at Congregation Ohev Shalom, in the same form. This event will happen on Saturday, April 18th at 5:30 PM.
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