​Romancing the Sephardic Romancero

Professor Judith Cohen

​After wowing a standing-room-only Jewish Music Week audience last year, ethno-musicologist Dr. Cohen returns with another brilliant presentation. Sephardic romanceros or romances (not to be confused with romantic love songs) are versions of Spanish and Portuguese narrative ballads whose stories can often be traced back to the Middle Ages or earlier. With both recorded and live musical illustrations, Dr. Cohen offers an overview of these fascinating tales as they are sung by Sephardim in Morocco and former Ottoman lands.

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Dr. Judith R. Cohen is a performer and ethnomusicologist specializing in Ladino Sephardic songs and medieval and traditional music. This includes Balkan, Portuguese, Yiddish, French Canadian, pan-European balladry, and songs from Crypto-Jewish regions of the Portuguese-Spanish border. She has done pioneering ethno musicological research with both the Crypto-Jews and with local Cigano (“Gypsy”) groups in Portuguese villages. Judith currently teaches at York University.