Concert: Tangier American Legation Museum

Tangier Concert
Marcel Botbul (l), violin and Vanessa Paloma (r), voice, harp, castanets
Roberson © 2007

Concert Program

  • Madre de la Gracia – Turkey
  • Ya vendrá – Tangier
  • Yo m’enamorí d’un aire – Egypt
  • La Comida La Mañana – Turkey
  • ¿Por qué no cantáis, la bella? – Tetuan
  • Los Japones – Los Angeles/Jack Mayesh
  • ¿Onde Fuites Joya Mía? – Sofia
  • Primo Rabi – New Mexico/Isabel Medina Sandoval
  • Hazeremos una merenda – Adrianopoli
  • Vayehi Miketz Burmuelos con Miel – Jerusalem
  • Avram Avinu

*See also program notes below.

To view the concert invitation, click here

Overflowing Ballroom
Tangier, Roberson © 2007

According to Paloma, "The program tonight hopes to achieve the awakening of our essence through music. Music is the gate to enter the deep and mysterious chambers of our selves. It is a suprarational invitation, beyond words and even beyond thoughts. Allow yourself to be taken by melodies, history and words. They are the vestibule to our essence: ancient, modern and future. In a world where time is not linear but spiral, all experiences exist in the same moment."

For Paloma's brief bio, click here

For Botbol's brief bio, click here

For more information about Paloma's current research, click here

Following the show: Botbul (l) and Paloma (r)
Tangier, Roberson © 2007

— click on any image on this page to view it in a larger format —

Program notes:

• Madre de la Gracia is a song about the experience of the ephemeral. The chasing after an experience one had and is constantly trying to relive.

• Ya vendrá is a Messianic song composed in 1600 in Tangiers that traveled to Amsterdam and to the Spanish and Portuguese congregation in New York.

Ya vendrá el Señor de la Redención

Para dezir a todos, vamos a Sión.

• Yo m’enamorí d’un aire laments falling in love with a beauty that one did not see well. Next time I hope to fall in love not at night, but during a sunny day.

• La Comida La Mañana, based on a popular Turkish melody, is a dialogue between a mother and her daughter about love and marriage.

• ¿Por qué no cantáis la bella?, a metaphor for the Shechina, the feminine presence of Gd fighting for her beloved: the souls that are in the war of life.

• Los Japones was composed by a Turkish cantor living in Los Angeles during World War II lamenting the disappearance of Japanese into internment camps.

• ¿Onde Fuites Joya Mia? Where did you go my jewel? I searched for you in a dark street and the moon, looking like a fiery presence shone. I asked, where does love start? Love starts in the eyes, then descends to the lungs and after that there is no escaping!

• Primo Rabi is written by a descendant of Jews forced to convert during the time of the expulsion from Spain and Inquisition. She is trying to remove years of walls and hiding imposed by their secret heritage.

• Hazeremos una merenda is a recipe for burmuelos in song.

• Vayehi Miketz is the weekly reading of the Torah that falls during Chanuka and refers to the battle between light and darkness.

• Avram Avinu is a circumsicion song that has become one of the most popular songs of the Judeo-Spanish repertoire, it tells about the birth of Abraham. This melody is also sung upon arriving to the home on Friday evening before the meal.

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