French soprano Françoise Atlan shares her love of Sephardic Jewish romance songs - a repertoire that's an important part of her family heritage.
Her latest, fifth, album Aman! Sefarad.. Sephardic songs from the former Ottoman Empire, recorded with En Chordais, brings together the main genres of the Jewish-Spanish repertoire, especially songs about daily life known as kantigas. They accompany some of life's most universal moments from the trials of childbirth, to chosing a partner, to how to cook an aubergine.
Atlan's outstanding voice expresses the nostalgia for the period before the Edict of Expulsion in 1492, and highlights the crossover between Muslim, Greek and Jewish musicians who helped a common tradition within the world of the Ottoman Empire to evolve.
Atlan is on facebook.
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