The residency of the Spanish trio "Jako El Muzikante" took place in January 2022 as part of the activities of the global-local music network "Klangkosmos NRW" with music workshops at schools and nine live concerts. It was originally scheduled in April 2021 as a contribution to the anniversary "321-2021: 1700 Jahre jüdisches Leben in Deutschland e.V.", which commemorated the importance of Jewish culture and history for Germany and Europe.
With songs of Sephardic Jews mostly sung in Ladino including songs that were secretly sung by Greeks, Turks, Armenians and Sephardic descendants in a bar called Café Aman in the Ottoman Empire's last capital Constantinople and other metropolises in the region at the beginning of the 20th century, the trio’s tour impressively reconstructed the atmosphere of Café Aman with current interpretations and enthused the very diverse and, despite covid restrictions, numerous audiences in the NRW cities of Bergkamen, Brilon, Düsseldorf, Detmold, Gelsenkirchen, Hamm, Herne and Wuppertal.
Xurxo Fernandes, the head of the trio, released 12 songs from his collection of Jewish music from the Ottoman Empire in 2019 in the album "Ven Al Luna Park" (Come to Luna Park) with an extensive accompanying lyrics book of the songs in Spanish, English and Hebrew.
Videos:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvv_t6V6m3A
