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Sefardic Celebration!

Sefardic Celebration CD Cover
Sefardic Celebration CD Cover (Trio Sefardi)

Tonight at 7:30pm, Trio Sefardi will be presenting a special concert at Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Church.  This will be Washington Revels’ second “salon-concert” presented in conjunction with the 2011 Christmas Revels show–offering a great opportunity to hear and interact with our guest musicians in a more intimate setting than Lisner Auditorium.  Tickets are available online or at the door tonight.

Trio Sefardi

Performers Howard Bass, Tina Chancey and Susan Gaeta share a love of and a wide-ranging experience with Sephardic music. Its members have performed and recorded with La Rondinella, the Western Wind, and with NEA National Heritage Fellowship awardee Flory Jagoda, the renowned Sephardic singer and composer, who will be joining them tonight in this very special performance.

Trio Sefardi
Trio Sefardi (Howard Bass, Susan Gaeta and Tina Chancey)

Trio Sefardi combines a respect for tradition with a creative approach to arranging and scoring to bring the vibrant past into the living present. After making their Washington-area debut on the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage in November 2010, the trio is now releasing their first recording, Sefardic Celebration this month! In fact, if you attend tonight’s salon-concert, you will have an opportunity to purchase one of the first copies of this new CD (Hear audio excerpts from their new CD online).

Learn more about the performers in tonight’s concert:

Learn More

What is Sephardic Music?
Music of the Sephardic Jews, including traditional songs encompass ballads, romances and wedding songs that were passed on orally and sung originally in various Iberian languages (Castilian, Catalan, Galician, etc.), as well as Hebrew.

Who are the Sephardim (Sephardic Jews)?
Those Jews whose roots can be traced to the Iberian Peninsula where Jews first appeared in the early years following the Roman destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, and exile from the Holy Land. There are references to a Jewish presence in Iberia from the time of Solomon, when Jewish adventurers sailed the Mediterranean Sea.  The first notated date is 79 AD.  Spanish Jews in Iberia lived in relatively good times under Moorish rule during the 10th and 11th centuries when Islamic power was at its zenith.  Jewish physicians, advisors, diplomats and financiers were important participants in the Islamic Courts in Spain.  They were classed as politically neutral and used as arbitrators in all disputes between Muslims and Christians.

Information on Sephardic culture excerpted from Susan Gaeta’s Web site (www.susangaeta.com)

Want more information on the show or to buy tickets? Click here!

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The Future Has Arrived

iPad Sheet Music at the InterFaith Concert
My friends, the future has arrived. Photo: Helen Fields

Tuesday’s InterFaith Concert was lovely – there was such a delightful variety of performances, from traditional choirs in formal wear to barefoot dancers in shiny costumes. But this may be the thing that amazed me the most that night…

See that thing on the piano? Ramon Bryant Braxton, the accompanist for the combined choir pieces, played from an iPad! I hope he had a paper backup. You’d hate to have the battery run out halfway through the song.

Actually, the fact that pianists are using iPads these days wasn’t the only fun new thing I learned while we were at the cathedral. Terry Winslow, one of the esteemed veterans of our chorus, told me he grew up a few blocks away from the cathedral and, in the 1950’s, played tag among the chapels on the lower level. Another chorus member has been performing there since she was in high school (and I don’t think she even grew up in the D.C. area). Still another sang in a wedding there sometime in the last few years. The best part of being involved in Revels is getting to hang out with all these cool people and hear their stories.

Want more information on the show or to buy tickets? Click here!