Conversation and Concert with Nani Noam Vazana

Past program. Click here for the recording.. The recording begins at 13 minutes.

Wednesday, September 30 at 1 pm ET
via Facebook Live and NMAJH website
Free, with suggested $5 donation. Facebook RSVP encouraged. Registration not required.

In partnership with Jews in ALL Hues

Celebrate and explore the music of the Israeli-born, Netherlands-based Ladino (Judeo-Spanish) artist, Nani Noam Vazana. Nani will sit down virtually with NMAJH public programs manager and musician, Dan Samuels, to talk about her upbringing, her Moroccan roots, musical influences, and what drives her passion for preserving old and creating new Ladino music.

Nani is an acclaimed international singer, composer, pianist, and trombonist. Her current work captures the spirit of an endangered language and culture, propels it into the 21st century with socially pertinent lyrics, and celebrates migration, gender, and identity from a strong, female perspective. Read more about Nani in this article.

Ways to watch
Look for the LIVE post on the Museum’s Facebook page at 1pm ET. You do not need a Facebook account to view the program.

Beginning at 1pm EST, this program will also be available on the Museum’s website NMAJH.org via a pop-up message on the homepage. Please note that audience Q&A is only available on Facebook during the live program.

About the series:

This series launched in June 2020 explores music from varied Jewish traditions and diverse cultures, from the historic and traditional to the contemporary and reimagined. Through conversations, performances, videos, audio, and audience Q&A, this series will use music to better understand the complex, culturally diverse communities which make up the Jewish People, and our nation.

More about Nani Noam Vazana

Nani Noam Vazana is an acclaimed international singer, composer, pianist and trombonist. She brings a breath of fresh air into the world music landscape with her hypnotizing vocals, often compared to Mercedes Sosa and Nina Simone, and her timeless compositions, which blend Middle Eastern music, North African beats, and the Sephardic traditional song.

The cultural backgrounds of her fellow musicians – Pablo Dominguez (son of Chano Doinguez) on guitar and Ayoze de Alejandro on percussion – range, like the Ladino language itself, from all around the globe: the Iberian peninsula, Israel and The Canary Islands.

For 2020 she is booked to play on major stages: the Richmond Folk Festival USA (main stage), the Montana Folk Festival USA (main stage), representing Israel at the HUE Festival Vietnam, the Manchester Jazz Festival UK and 34 more dates around the world.

In 2019, she performed at the Kennedy Center USA, Jodhpur RIFF festival India, represented the Netherlands at the EU Music Festival in Vietnam, won the SENA Album Award and an Arts Council England Commission Award.

The Dutch NPO network released a mini documentary about Nani’s musical work in 2018. Nani also composed music for BBC and NPO documentaries.

Nani is the chairwoman of the Amsterdam Artist Collective, CEO at Why DIY Music and at Nova Productions, and is a frequent collaborator, including with the Amsterdam Andalusian Orchestra and South-African cellist Abel Selaocoe.