THE JUDITH MOK HAMSA ENSEMBLE
SMOCK ALLEY THEATRE (formerly SS Michael & John)
THURSDAY 29TH OCT
Doors: 8PM
Adm: € 20/15

‘MY HEART IS IN THE EAST’, AN EVENING OF SEPHARDIC AND PERSIAN MUSIC PERFORMED BY THE JUDITH MOK HAMSA ENSEMBLE

Performed by Judith Mok soprano and Javid Afsari Rad santour, with Nick Roth sax, Oleg Ponomarev violin, Cora Venus Lunny viola, Francesco Turissi percussion & keyboard, Simon Jermyn guitars

‘My Heart is in the East, but I am in the West’, wrote the great Spanish Jewish poet, Judah Halevi, who lived in the 11th century. In Spain at that time, Jewish and Arabic cultures flourished alongside each other and cross-fertilised each other. The Jews called Spain ‘Sepharad’. When they were expelled from their beloved Spain in the 15th and 16th centuries, they took with them the romances and ballads of medieval Spain, which would come to be known as Sephardic music. As the Spanish Jews settled in North Africa, Turkey, the Balkans and the Holy Land, this music of loss and longing absorbed all the local musical influences, to produce the incredibly rich variety of Sephardic music we have today. For some years now the Dutch soprano Judith Mok, who is herself partly of Sephardic descent, has been exploring this unique musical heritage.

They will be joined by Javid Afsari Rad, one of the world’s leading exponents of Persian music and its special instrument, the Santour. The Santour is a hammered dulcimer which has been played in Persia for thousands of years, and is the ancestor of our Western piano.

It promises to be a unique evening, bringing together widely different styles of music from Jewish and Islamic cultures, in a spirit of harmony and celebration.

The Judith Mok Hamsa Ensemble is grateful to the Norwegian Embassy and Royal Netherlands Embassy for their generous support.

Additional Resource

www.youtube under Judith Mok
www.judithmok.com
www.myspace.com/judithmokofficialmyspace