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 20th
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 20th 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).