Drawing on his forthcoming book, “Sonic Ruins of Modernity: Judeo-Spanish Folksongs Today,” musicologist Edwin Seroussi will examine a repertoire of Ladino (Judeo-Spanish) folksongs transmitted by Sephardic Jews, a process made possible by a complex network of people and forces extending from the distant past to the “post-tradition era” of the present.

In addition to the lecture, Ke Guo, musician and Ph.D. candidate in the UW School of Music, will perform Sephardic folksongs.

Also register for Edwin Seroussi’s talk on Wednesday, March 27, at 7:00 p.m.:
A Spark of King David: The Musical Poetry of Rabbi Israel Najara Then and Now

About the speaker

Edwin Seroussi is the Emanuel Alexandre Professor Emeritus of Musicology at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Chair of the Academic Committee of the Jewish Music Research Centre, Visiting Scholar at Dartmouth College and, in 2023/4, Fellow at the Herbert G. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania.  His research focuses on Jewish musical cultures of the Mediterranean and Middle East and their interactions with Islamic cultures, Judeo-Spanish song and music in Israel. He explores processes of hybridization, diaspora, nationalism and transnationalism in diverse contexts and historical periods such as the Ottoman Empire, colonial Morocco and Algeria, Germany’s Second Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Zionist settlement in Palestine and the Judeo-Spanish-speaking diaspora.

This series is cosponsored by the UW Department of Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures, the UW Middle East Center, the UW Near and Middle East Studies Ph.D. Program, ArtsUW, part of the College of Arts and Sciences, and by the Ethnomusicology Program at the University of Washington.

It is presented by the Hazzan Isaac Azose Fund for Community Engagement, created in partnership with the Isaac Alhadeff Foundation and the Benoliel Family Fund, with additional support provided by Congregation Ezra Bessaroth, the Seattle Sephardic Brotherhood and the Sephardic Bikur Holim Congregation, as well as Jack I. Azose, Howard Behar, Harley and Lela Franco, Jeff and Jamie Merriman Cohen, Jack Schaloum and Marlene Souriano Vinikoor.