THE EVOLUTION OF THE JEWISH MUSIC TRADITION IN GREECE
The project titled “The Evolution of the Jewish Music Tradition in Greece” is a research study on the music of the Jewish population of various regions that nowadays constitute the Greek state. It was actualizedby a Greek team which consisted of Mariangela Chatzistamatiou (the project manager, performer and researcher), Popi Georgopoulou (museologist), Nikos Panagiotides (instrumentation of the songs, the rehearsals, the recordings, and creator of the music sheets) and Chryssie Scarlatos (musicologist and researcher). The team focused on the two main Jewish music traditions of Greece, those of the Romaniotes (Jews who settled in the Greek lands since the Hellenistic and the Byzantine eras and their vernacular was Greek) and of the Sephardim (Jews who settled in the Greek lands after their expulsion from Spain and their vernacular was Judeo-Spanish).
The project has been accomplished after thorough bibliographical and on-site research, the latter including a series of interviews to M.Chatzistamatiou and, secondarily, to C. Scarlatos. The interviewees were Aliki Angel, Jacky Benmayor, Moisis Elisaf, David Frances, Rula Kone and David Saltiel.
The final products of the research are a) the present essay that deals with the research, b) a compact disc with selected Greek Sephardic and Romaniote paraliturgical and secular songs, titled Unknown Musical Treasures of the Jewish Tradition of Greece, c) a booklet concerning the songs, which comes with the compact disc, d) the music sheets of the songs, and e) the incorporation of these songs into a special section of the Jewish Museum of Thessaloniki, dedicated to the Jewish tradition in Greece.