Southeastern European Studies/Romanian Studies: Live-concert: „Canticas de Sefarad“ (Erfurt)

"Sefarad" is the Hebrew name for the Iberic Peninsula. In 1492 the Spanish King Ferdinand issued an edict by which all Jews were banished from the country. They settled within the countries of the Ottoman Empire on the whole of the Balkans and all round the Mediterrenean. From Medieval Spanish, enriched with Hebrew words and idioms from the particular host region, emerged an own language which is to be called Ladino and is basis to the Sephardic songs. In Southeastern Europe developed within the course of history amongst many other locations but especially Sarajevo, Thessaloniki, Belgrade and Istanbul to cultural centers of the Sephardi Jews. Today remnants of an active and popular cultural, musical and intercultural-symbiotic scene of Sephardi Jews retained especially in the urban main centers of Bosnia, Serbia and Turkey. These absorbed parts of the particular regional and various, cultural-linguistic specialities of the Southeastern European space without giving up their dominant Sephardic-Romanic and Jewish character.

The motives of the songs are vary diverse. Remarkably popular are songs of festivity, dance and love as well as ballades of fate that count among the steady repertoire of "Canticas de Sefarad". With their mix of fun-loving, cheeky-ironic funny and moving lyrics, melodies and rhythms the band delights their audience frequently. The sometimes vibrant, sometimes shallow, melodic and perfectly harmonised sound made of vocals, transverse flute, guitar, percussions and drums create a pleasant, dynamic-swinging and euphoric atmosphere that repeatedly carries the audience sooner or later off their seats and encourages to resonate and dance.

The music of "Canticas de Sefarad" is not just an equally interesting, inspiring and varied experience-enrichmentfor Balkanologists, Romanists, Semitists, Orientalists, Turkologists and Cosmopolites. It addresses every culture-, music- and dance-loving as well as simply basically curious people of every social and professional class and age group and creates an experience that remains unforgettable and that teases for more.