Abstract

Edwin Seroussi and Joel Bresler unveil a major new web-based encyclopedic resource, years in the making ”a Sephardic Music Discography that will list all known commercial recordings containing Ladino songs, catalogued by artist, song and other identifying information. This breakthrough in Sephardic music research represents a unique resource and model for the study and dissemination of traditional music using the technology and outreach capabilities of the World Wide Web. The project launch coincides with an important cultural milestone, the 100th anniversary of commercial Sephardic recording, which began in 1906/1907.

Mr. Bresler will survey the 100-year history of commercial recordings of Sephardic music. He will cover the relatively neglected early commercial Sephardic recordings on 78 rpm. He will then broaden into a discussion of how recordings of Sephardic music changed dramatically in the latter half of the 20^th century, owing to the folk revival, early music and world music movements. Professor Seroussi will analyze Sephardic 78 rpm recordings and show how they yield up a rich story of Sephardic musical life in the first half of the 20^th century. He will also cover recording technolog's impact on the perception, reception and canonization of Ladino songs in recent decades. Both speakers will describe plans for the new web site and the talk will be illustrated throughout with rare unedited early recordings.

Dr. Edwin Seroussi is the Emanuel Alexander Professor of Musicology, Director of the Jewish Music Research Centre and chair of the Department of Musicology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Among the leading scholars of music in Israel today, he has researched and written extensively about Sephardic music, traditional Jewish liturgical music, and Israeli popular music. His publications include Cancionero sefard­ by Alberto Hemsi (1995), Spanish-Portuguese Synagogue Music in Nineteenth-century Reform Sources from Hamburg: Ancient Tradition in the Dawn of Modernity (1996), and Popular Music and National Culture in Israel (with Motti Regev) (2004). Dr. Seroussi has also edited several CDs of Jewish music, including Jerusalem in Hebrew Prayers and Songs (Wergo, Berlin 1996) and Chants judo-espagnols de la Mediterrane orientale (Indit, Paris 1994).

Joel Bresler is a Harvard-trained MBA with twenty five years experience in new media publishing (videodisk, videogame, publishing software, and online and mobile media). He has been collecting Sephardic music on commercial recordings for 30 years and researching it for a decade. In the past several years he has digitized his collection of about 1,500 recordings in all formats (old 78 rpms, LPs, cassettes, CDs, etc.) from all over the world. The result is 8,000 different song performances spanning the entire 100 year history of Sephardic recording. With the support of the Amado Foundation, the Mayesh family and in collaboration with the Jewish Music Research Centre, this discography and digitized collection will now be transformed into an effective web-based tool for the benefit of a large community of users.

Dr. Virginia Danielson, distinguished guest respondent for this presentation, is the Richard F. French Librarian of the Eda Kuhn Loeb Music Library at Harvard University, a noted expert on Middle Eastern music, and author of The Voice of Egypt: Umm Kulthum, Arabic Song, and Egyptian Society in the Twentieth Century (2003).