Sephardim are a diasporic population of Jewish people whose ancestry can be traced back to the Iberian Peninsula, specifically to the Jews that were expelled from Spain in 1492 as a result of the Spanish Inquisition. As they migrated all over the world, Sephardim carried with them their culture, traditions, and Ladino (or Judeo-Espagnol) language, which is essentially 15th-century Castilian Spanish, with contributions from Catalan, Valencian, Aragonese, Hebrew, Turkish, Arabic, Greek, French, Italian, and Balkan languages. Furthermore, they carried with them their oral literature, including traditional Sephardic folk songs that reflect the diverse influences of the many cultures they encountered throughout their five-hundred-year-long journey. Meanwhile, the nationalist movement in Western classical music in the late 19th century inspired Jewish composers to express a Jewish identity in their music, which drew them towards Jewish folk literature. Thus, Western classical composers began to arrange Sephardic folk songs in the Western classical art song tradition, while keeping the Ladino texts. Art song is a vocal genre that is rooted in Medieval Europe, although today, the term is more often used in reference to the Western classical solo vocal literature created and performed in the German Lied tradition. When compared to the folk song genre, art songs are much more rigid in form and they tend to be more sophisticated musically and technically; art songs are intended for well-trained musicians and ‘classical’ vocalism.
Based on archival research and interviews with Jewish musicians and music scholars, I identified over forty-five composers who have arranged over a hundred and ninety different traditional Sephardic folk songs in the art song form for voice and various instruments. Despite the dominant Eurocentric perspective in the Western classical world, other nations and minorities have played important roles in its development. There exists a rich Sephardic repertoire within the Western classical medium, one that also offers a window into Sephardic culture and history.
Lori Şen, D.M.A., M.Ed.
Based on archival research and interviews with Jewish musicians and music scholars, I identified over forty-five composers who have arranged over a hundred and ninety different traditional Sephardic folk songs in the art song form for voice and various instruments. Despite the dominant Eurocentric perspective in the Western classical world, other nations and minorities have played important roles in its development. There exists a rich Sephardic repertoire within the Western classical medium, one that also offers a window into Sephardic culture and history.
Lori Şen, D.M.A., M.Ed.
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