Yahudice: Urban Ladino Music from Istanbul, Izmir, Thessalonica and Jerusalem cdRoots Home Page Read or Write Customer Reviews

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Hadass Pal-Yarden et al
Yahudice: Urban Ladino Music from Istanbul, Izmir, Thessalonica and Jerusalem (Kalan, Turkey)
$20.99

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Landarika
Mi Chika Flor

"Rarely, if ever, does top class scholarship balance passion and musical mastery as this effort by Hadass Pal-Yarden. It's hardly possible to catalog it simply as a CD with detailed notes, as the booklet is a 160 page affair with the same text accurately translated in English, Turkish and Hebrew. So there's meat for the more hungry readers, but for pure musical pleasure you could disregard the apparatus entirely and just let yourself be enticed into the finely shaded but deeply felt recreation of the largely lost world of the Ladino Jewry of the Ottoman empire..." - Francesco Martinelli, RootsWorld. Read his entire essay

You can hear more audio samples and read more complete notes here

Excerpts from the record notes:
Yahudije, the name used for the Ladino (Judeo-Spanish) language of the Jewish population in the Ottoman times, reflected a simple reality: most Jewish people in the Ottoman Empire were of Spanish origin and spoke Ladino. By the same logic Rumja (and not Yunanja) was the language of the Ottoman Greeks, and Ermenije was the language of the Armenians.

This album presents Ladino repertoire from a different perspective, it deals with urban music from Istanbul, Izmir, Thessalonika, and Jerusalem, its difference is embodied in a combination of three main characteristics: the song repertoire, the musical interpretation and the importance given to the documentation of those songs. I give this album as a gift to lovers of traditional music, to people interested in a less familiar but very beautiful repertoire and to those who want to know more about the stories behind the songs - to see through them the world those songs once represented.

Over a long period, I collected these songs from Sephardic informants whom I was lucky to meet, and through access to several archives offield recordings. The fruits oflonghours oflistenin gare given in the lists of recorded sources provided for each song.

A note about the musical arrangement: since most of the songs emerged in the former Ottoman Empire and since all the recordings I heard revealed makamic influence, it was only natural for me to choose traditional Ottoman instruments and musical arrangements that would help expose the original character of each song. This is the reason why we did not use any tempered instruments. It is true we cannot define the makam of each song, but in most there is a seyir (the makam's melodic progression) that implies heavy dependence on the Turkish makam system.

Ladino music is a world which has come alive for me duringthe time I've spend in each of those traditional Sepharadic music centers: I have lived in Jerusalem for seven years, traveled many times to Thessalonika, made field recordings there, was strongiy affected by the hmirian informants Jozeppo Burgana and Palomba Aroch, and am deepiy involved in Istanbul, where I chose to settie during the last three years. I do not think of my attachment to this music as devotion to my research, and long ago I stopped looking for a logical explanation: l can only say it is a passion, and I pray it will never diminish. - Hadass Pal-Yarden

About Hadass Pal-Yarden
Hadass Pal-Yarden is an Israeli Ladino (Judeo-Spanish) singer and a doctoral student of Ethnomusicology. During her Master's studies, she researched the subject of Contemporary Performances of the Ladino songs' Corpus in Jerusalem and devoted her thesis to this subject. She graduated in 2002 from the Music Department of Bar-Ilan University, Israel.

She spent 2 years in the Conservatory of Istanbul Technical University (Vocal Department) as a researcher, studying folklore, classical Turkish music, and Turkish Music Makam, in 2002 she started doctoral studies in the Ethnomusicology section of Istanbul Technical University's Advanced Music Studies Program (MIAM).

Hadass studied Turkish Music Repertoire and Theory with Reha and Selma Sag(bas, (TRT musicians) and participated with them in a concert made in the music workshop Mediterranean Dialogue (together with Yair Dalal, Ross Daly, Taisir Elias and others (29.11.01).

She has performed in Israel and collaborated with the Ladino singer Ruth Yaakov in several performances in Israel and with the Turkish informant of Ladino music Berta Aguado. She gave concerts in Thessalonika, Turkey and Israel and collaborated with the leading Turkish musicians Yurdal Tokcan (Oud) and Göksel Baktagir (Kanun).

Hadass participated in several musical projects of Cihat As,k?n (among them, she sang in his CD "Ege'nin Türküsü" as a soloist of the Turkish Zeybek "Ferahi" [KALAN 2000]). She also participated with Yinon Muallem in his CD, "Changing Moments", as soloist of the song "Shir La'Yakinton" (Beyza 2003). She recentiy produced and recorded, together with Stelyo Berber, the song "Kanario* in Ladino, Greek, and Turkish in a showcase album of MIAM.

Among her solo concert programs are: "Selanik'ten I.zmir'e-Sefarad S,ark?lar" (Istanbul, 2002-2003); "I tu en los Flores - A homage to the ladino researcher and composer Isaac Levi" (Jerusalem, 2003); "V?nyas I Kampos" - Together with the actor Vitali Ferrera (Israel, 2002); "Ladino from Spanish Morocco" (Israel Museum, 1999).

Yahudije, Yahudija, Yahudice