Mission:
Sephardic Music Festival’s goal is unifying people through culture and education, celebrating diversity and common ground. By way of this work, we put forth a public Jewish face to multi-cultural, inter-faith, creative, and collaborative bridge-building.
About:
The Sephardic Music Festival showcases the remarkable diversity that exists within the Jewish community. Its tapestry of harmonies, rhythms, and cultural motifs are as rich, vibrant, and diverse as the Jewish world itself. Popular perceptions of Jews and Jewish culture are dominated by Ashkenazi images and symbols like bagels, gefilte fish, klezmer, and Yiddish. This is the first music festival to focus exclusively on the less familiar but captivating culture of the Jewish communities of Spain/Portugal, North Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia.
The festival showcases artists from all over the world, representing cultural traditions from Ladino (Judeo-Spanish) to Mizrahi (Middle Eastern/North African) to Yemenite (Judeo-Arabic). In addition to traditional liturgical music, Shabbat songs, Sephardic folk tunes, and classic love poems (Romanceros), the festival also presents artists who fuse traditional rhythms, melodies, and themes with modern styles such as electro, hip hop, and dance music. The Sephardic Scholar Series, an important part of the Festival, brings performers, ethnomusicologists, and experts together to illuminate the historical and sociological roots of Sephardic music and culture.
SEPHARDIC MUSIC FESTIVAL HAS BEEN FEATURED IN;
WALL STREET JOURNAL | NY TIMES | WFMU | TIME OUT | VILLAGE VOICE | BROOKLYN VEGAN | NPR | NY POST & MORE
SELECTED QUOTES:
“This Hanukkah fest wants to school us in Jewish music—and not just your grandpa’s klez.” – Time Out NY
“eclectic lineup of traditional and contemporary artists, including many dedicated to fusing disparate sounds or bridging new and old.” – The NY Times
“Thanks to events like the Sephardic Music Festival, the sounds of Sephardic Jewry are at last beginning to get their due.” – The Forward
“For most New Yorkers, “Jewish music” means klezmer: plaintive fiddles, wailing clarinets and other vestiges of a largely vanished Eastern European culture. But at the Sephardic Music Festival, a New York City tradition…, the world of Jewish music gets explored from an entirely different angle, focusing on the aural legacy of Jewish communities from Spain and the Muslim world.” – The Jerusalem Post
“Our Hannukkah-side suggestion is the annual Sephardic Music Festival…look at this festival as the un-Ashkenazi festival.” – National Public Radio, WNYC
SELECTED PRESS:
NY TIMES (click here)
WALL STREET JOURNAL(click here)
JSPACE
(click here)
Nextbook (click here)
Daily News (click here)
Time Out (click here)
NPR (click here)
Brooklyn Vegan (click here)
The Jewish Week (click here)
The Jerusalem Post (click here)
The Forward (click here)
PHOTOS FROM PAST FESTIVALS:
VIDEO COVERAGE:
SMF Art Rave & Fashion Show (introduction video)
http://youtu.be/VIr7pEC78pU
Shalom TV’s coverage of SMF’s opening night
http://blip.tv/play/hrYtgpbzGQI
Divahn @ Joe’s Pub
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=436zweXkN7c
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ga4oSJr5y3M
Eden Mi Qedem @ Highline Ballroom
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRP6wIozfns
Smadar @ Joe’s Pub
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QtB3xi_K2Y
SMF Art Rave & Fashion Show (Video recap)
http://youtu.be/Vfxj-3ugq7c
On Jewish Diversity at SMF 2010 and beyond
http://youtu.be/TmaFaZtOBNE