{"id":10064,"date":"2013-10-18T03:49:16","date_gmt":"2013-10-18T09:49:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/?p=10064"},"modified":"2013-10-18T10:13:29","modified_gmt":"2013-10-18T16:13:29","slug":"ljuba-davis-ensemble-bringing-life-to-growing-ladino-music-scene","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/ljuba-davis-ensemble-bringing-life-to-growing-ladino-music-scene\/","title":{"rendered":"Ljuba Davis Ensemble bringing life to growing Ladino music scene"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By TALIA LAVIN<\/p>\n<p>NEW YORK (JTA) &#8212; Avraham Pengas, a veteran bouzouki player, says few Ashkenazic musicians can make Sephardic music come alive.<\/p>\n<p>Ljuba Davis, he says, is \u201cabsolutely\u201d one of them.<\/p>\n<p>Davis (her first name is pronounced LYOO-bah) is the lead singer of the Ljuba Davis Ladino Ensemble, a group that performs Ladino and Sephardic music. The group features an oud (a lute of Middle East origin), the bouzouki (a Greek four-stringed instrument), classical Spanish guitar and lively percussion.<\/p>\n<p>Its musicians are equally diverse. Pengas, 60, was born in Athens, Greece. Nadav Lev, the guitarist, grew up on a kibbutz in Israel. Percussionist Osama Farouk hails from Egypt. And oud player Rachid Halihal grew up in Morocco.<\/p>\n<p>The ensemble\u2019s diversity reflects the nature of the Ladino language, which originated in Spain before the Inquisition and was spoken throughout Greece, the Balkans, Turkey, North Africa and beyond.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_10108\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/LDL-band-photo.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-10108\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-10108 lazyload\" title=\"LDL band photo\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/LDL-band-photo-300x231.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"231\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/LDL-band-photo-300x231.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/LDL-band-photo-1024x791.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/LDL-band-photo.jpg 1133w\" data-sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 300px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 300\/231;\" \/><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-10108\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-10108 \" title=\"LDL band photo\" src=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/LDL-band-photo-300x231.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"231\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/LDL-band-photo-300x231.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/LDL-band-photo-1024x791.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/LDL-band-photo.jpg 1133w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/noscript><\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-10108\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ljuba Davis presides over an ensemble of diverse musicians performing music in Ladino.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Ladino has much in common with Yiddish, Europe&#8217;s other Jewish language. Both have a rich and varied culture of folktales, music and literature. Both were devastated by the Holocaust. And both have been classified as endangered by the Israeli government. In 1997, Israel established the National Authority of Ladino aimed at preserving Judeo-Spanish culture.<\/p>\n<p>Alongside the revived interest in Yiddish in recent years, a small crop of young musicians are working to revive Ladino musical culture and revamp it for a new audience. Sarah Aroeste&#8217;s recently released album \u201cGracia\u201d is a combination of revamped Ladino classics and original music. The album was named one of the best of 2012 by the Forward.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Ladino music scene keeps growing. It\u2019s been growing for awhile, and it keeps growing,\u201d said Gloria Ascher, a professor of Ladino language and literature at Tufts University. \u201cThere are new performers, new composers. People are really very excited about it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Davis, 68, was born in Beckley, W.Va., to parents of Ukrainian descent. But her grandmother always reminded her that the family originally came from Spain.<\/p>\n<p>She learned music from her father, a classically trained violinist, and found herself drawn to the Sephardic musical tradition. She later became a fixture on the West Coast music scene, where she melded Jewish music and protest songs in the Bay Area while working as a registered nurse and raising seven children on traditional Ladino lullabies such as &#8220;Dourme, Dourme.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s a life to the music melodically,\u201d Davis said. \u201cThe lyrics evoke the feeling of the Mediterranean, the warmth, the sunshine, the romance.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It wasn&#8217;t until she was 65 that Davis made a recording at the prompting of her son David.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe said, \u2018Mom, before you lose your voice and your marbles, you\u2019ve got to make this recording,&#8217; \u201d Davis recalled. \u201cHe\u2019d been hearing this music since childhood.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Through the fundraising website Kickstarter, Davis raised $12,000 in 60 days to cover recording expenses. Davis and her son scoured the New York music scene for accompanying musicians.<\/p>\n<p>Pengas, a veteran of the Sephardic music scene, was introduced through a mutual friend. Halal was found playing the oud in a subway station.<\/p>\n<p>A double CD was released in 2011 and led to performances throughout the Northeast, including a recent concert on Martha&#8217;s Vineyard where Davis lives. The group performed at the Gibraltar World Music Festival last year and will play in New York in December.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOne of the elements that I love is that it\u2019s unusual for people to hear Ladino,\u201d said Davis. \u201cI love it all &#8212; the music, the liturgy, the language. It\u2019s in my pores.\u201d<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" data-src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" class=\"lazyload\" \/><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/noscript><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"Tumblr\",\"Email\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"Ljuba%20Davis%20Ensemble%20bringing%20life%20to%20growing%20Ladino%20music%20scene\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[4029,8790,8795,327,4025,4024,4026,8788,4027,4028],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10064"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10064"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10064\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10110,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10064\/revisions\/10110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}