[HANASHIR:3606] Re: Sephardic music

[Judah Cohen <jcohen...>]

Hi, CArol.

        You'd probably expect I would say this:  "Sephardic
Music" is a huge topic, with many different geographical areas and musical
traditions involved.  The commercial "Sephardic" artists today, such as
"Voice of the
Turtle," "Alhambra," "Sepharad," Flory Jagoda, etc., tend to focus on
Ballads or Romances (Romanceros).  Note that this is just *one* genre of
Sephardic music. Romances, with their images of longing and their
stories of direct oral connections back to Medieval Spain (not to
mention their "feminist" appeal as products of an exclusive
mother-->daughter transmission) have
caught the imaginations of scholars and listeners for years; so there is a
lot of work on them.  Some sources (which are hopefully somewhat
accessible) are:

1.  Amnon Shiloah, "Jewish Musical Traditions."  Detroit:  Wayne State
University Press, 1992: 189-196. (This book is available at the TARA
website).

2.  Samuel Armistead, Joseph Katz and Joseph Silverman, "Folk Literature
of the Sephardic Jews, Vol. II:  Judeo-Spanish Ballads from Oral
Tradition." (mid-1980s, I think)

3.  Joseph Katz, "Judeo-Spanish Ballads from Jerusalem" (1972)

Outside of the "commercial" meaning of "Sephardic Music":

Religious music of the Sephardic communities of Western and Central
Europe, as I mentioned in an earlier post, is completely different from
the Romanceros.  It is comparatively "Western" sounding.  Moreover,
there's not all that much that's been written on it.

1.  Edwin Seroussi, "Spanish-Portuguese Syangogue Music in Nineteenth
Century Reform Sources from Hamburg:  Ancient Tradition in the Dawn of
Modernity."  Jerusalem: the Magnes Press, 1996.

2.  Cantor Norman Swerling also has a CD and book of the Music of the
Sephardic community of Curacao, published through Tara.

For music in other Sephardic cultures, I would *STRONGLY* recommend Kay
Kaufman Shelemay's book "Let Jasmine Rain Down:  Song and Remembrance
Among Syrian Jews."  Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998. (Not just
because she's my advisor!)  It addresses exactly what your congregant
seems interested in, albeit with a somewhat different repertoire (piyyutim
of the Syrian Jewish community of Brooklyn, NY).  It's also written in a
manner accessible to the interested non-specialist (Shelemay wanted to
make sure the people in the communiy she studied could read it), and it
was a NAtional Jewish Book Award Finalist this past year.

Anyhow, that's my two cents, for what it's worth.

Be well.
Judah.

On Thu, 29 Jul 1999, Carol Boyd Leon wrote:

> Can you help?  A congregant at my temple asked me the following.  I'd like 
> to send him the info he requested:
> 
> "I am interested in learning more about Sephardic music.  I have visited a 
> bunch of sights on the Web, but am looking for more
> indepth information. Specifically, I am interested in getting a history of 
> its roots, its ties to other types of music (i.e. Gypsy, Fado,) what 
> instruments are used, who is playing it, and where it can be heard now."
> 
> Thanks for helping! -- Carol
> 
> Carol Boyd Leon
> Director of Music, Temple B'nai Shalom
> 7612 Old Ox Road, Fairfax Station, VA 22039
> Temple fax:  703-764-2904
> E-mail:  CBLeon (at) hotmail(dot)com
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________________________
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