Like Appalachian dew at sunrise, Lily Henley’s voice sparkles on her second full-length album, but beneath the surface of her songs run forces that have rearranged landscapes for more than 500 years. The pillars of Oras Dezaoradas (Timeless Hours) are the artist’s nomadic childhood, her family having moved more than a dozen times; the fiddle camps she attended every summer that became an … More Lily Henley: Oras Dezaoradas
There’s an exquisite balance in Sarah Aroeste’s homage to a bygone community that lives in her heart under a bygone name. Bitola is North Macedonia’s second largest city, a place of Ottoman and Neoclassical architecture, of commerce and culture. For Aroeste’s family it is (and officially was until 1913) called Monastir, a refuge that became home: After Spain expelled its Jewish population in 1492, many migrated to the Ottoman Empire … More Sarah Aroeste: Monastir
As a boy during the Siege of Sarajevo (1992-96) Damir Imamović took advantage of confinement and learned to play guitar. He didn’t envision a music career, but after earning a philosophy degree and landing a job in publishing, fate approached him, dressed as an assignment to edit a book on the songs of his grandfather, Zaim Imamović, a leading sevdah artist of the twentieth century. By the time … More Damir Imamović: Singer of Tales
Every sea is a timeless highway of hope and sorrow, and Dafné Kritharas has combed the Aegean for telltale echoes. Though focused on tides from the 1920s and 1930s, her crosscurrents run deeper: In 1492, the multicultural Ottoman Empire welcomed Jewish refugees from Spain, creating Ladino-speaking communities across the eastern Mediterranean. The sun set on pluralism with … More Dafné Kritharas: Djoyas de Mar
The Sephardic saga includes chapters of persecution and expulsion, but on her forth album the Israeli singer-songwriter Mor Karbasi (who has also lived in London and Seville) looks at her Jewish heritage from Spain and Morocco mostly through the prism of love. Ojos de Novia (Eyes of a Bride) embraces songs of romantic love (though sometimes involving disapproving or even warring parents), love of family, of God, of singing and of nature. This is an … More Mor Karbasi: Ojos de Novia
