Texas Early Music Project
“Songs of the Sephardim: Love, Lament, and Loss”
Expelled from Iberia in 1492, the Sephardim created haunting music that reflected their longing for return to Iberia while adapting their traditions and music to their new homelands. Sephardic music is at once beautiful and haunting, fun and poignant. TEMP’s performances of these songs of love, jealousy, loss, and comedy are one of Austin’s not-to-be-missed events. Most of us are familiar with the effects of love and its cousins, pain and jealousy, but to hear music from the last 500 years deal with this subject in simple, yet excruciating beauty, illustrates how our emotions aren’t so very different from those of the Sephardic exiles.
TEMP’s unique and creative arrangements, soulful vocal solos, and ensemble pieces explore this music, accompanied by the exotic textures of a hybrid Medieval/Middle Eastern instrumental ensemble. The program includes some favorites from the TEMP Sephardic repertoire (La serena, La rosa enflorece, Puncha, puncha, and the erotically charged song Noches, noches) and many newly-arranged songs and dances.
International recorder player and world music specialist Nina Stern (New York) joins us for this concert, along with Bay Area’s Peter Maund, specialist in early and ethnic percussion. Houston’s Therese Honey (harp) joins oud player Josh Peters, Scott Horton, John Walters, Kit Robberson, Bruce Colson, and Stephanie Raby in the instrumental ensemble. Our singers are Gitanjali Mathur, Stephanie Prewitt, Jenifer Thyssen, Cayla Cardiff, Gil Zilkha, and Daniel Johnson.
From the passionate, tragic love songs to songs of fantasy and gaiety, this alluring musical genre will capture your imagination and captivate your heart.
- Performers
- Texas Early Music Project
- Venue
- St. Martin's Lutheran Church
606 W. 15th St, Austin, TX map - Presented by
- Meredith Ruduski
- Date
- Sun, October 30, 2016, 3:00 PM - 3:00 PM
