From their new album 'Roots'

Date: 18 October 2007

Time: 8pm

Venue: The Spiro Ark Centre - 25-26 Enford St, W1

Price: £10 (£5 Full time Students & children up to age of 13)

Norman Cohen Falah- Lead Vocal, Guitar Theo Lais- Guitar

Kalia Baklitzanaki- Ney, Flute&Vocals Elizabeth Nott-Percussion

Sephardic music is unique to the Sephardic Jews, one of the three main groups among Diaspora Jewry; the others being the Ashkenazi and Mizrahi. Sephardic Jews originally referred just

to the Jews from the Iberian Peninsula, but now applies to most of the Mediterranean region as, since the Spanish Expulsion, they have for century lived among the Mizrahim. The Spanish Jewish community continues with a form of popular music referred to as Sephardic.

These song traditions spread from Spain to Morocco and several parts of the Ottoman Empire (the Eastern Tradition) including Greece, Jerusalem, the Balkans and Egypt. Sephardic music adapted to each of these places, assimilating North African high-pitch, extended ululations, Balkan rhythms (for instance in 9/8 time) and the Turkish maqam mode.

Kerensya (a ladino word which means heritage), offers a fresh approach to Sephardic music, performed in this case by a male vocalist. The ensemble was established in 2006