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Kat Parra, a world-renowned latin/world jazz vocalist, recently received a grant from the Zellerbach Foundation to further explore and develop the exciting and vibrant music of the Sephardic Jews. Parra initially became interested in this rich music when she discovered her own personal connection to Spanish Jewry. She also found fascinating the history of the “Golden Age” of Spain where Jews, Muslims and Christians lived together in relative peace, sharing ideas and innovations with one another. Parra believes music is a powerful tool that can influence healing in the world today. It is her hope that she can contribute in some small way to this healing with her music.

The goals of the Sephardic Music Experience (SME) are to explore the rich and diverse history of Sephardic music and its influences from different regions of the world. It is the hope to bring community closer together with this rich and vibrant music. This project seeks to try and recreate a sharing of ideas and creativity along with aiding in the preservation of the Ladino language, a dying language of the Spanish Jews.

The SME invites the listener on a journey, traveling from the Iberian peninsula, with all of its Moorish influences, across the ocean into Latin America. The SME strives to incorporate a more modern sensibility into Sephardic music, thus making it more accessible to a wider, broad-minded audience. It is our hope to inspire and lift the universal consciousness into a conversation of hope and peace between all religions and cultures of the world.

The symbol being used for the SME is a symbol used by Jews and Muslims alike. It not only represents protection from evil, but also symbolizes a celebration of life that helps to unite all peoples, regardless of religious or cultural beliefs.