REVIEW: A musical love letter to Ladino
Internationally renowned Israeli music singer-songwriter Yasmin Levy made a triumphant return to London's Barbican; the ten year absence had been keenly felt by an adoring audience, writes Michelle Rosenberg
“Do you want a sad song? Or a sad song,” Yasmin Levy teased the crowd. It was the end of a powerful 90 minute set at the Barbican for an audience held spellbound by a woman whose vocal chords were so extraordinary they left me open-mouthed.
We’d spoken a week before the Israeli Ladino singer’s first return to the London music venue in a decade to promote her eighth album.
From her home in Jerusalem, she told me that London “always had a special place” in her heart” and that she loved the city in the winter. (We agreed to disagree on that particular point).
Levy grew up in Jerusalem, which she describes as a true melting pot of peoples and cultures, listening to Turkish versions of Moroccan music, classical, chanson, jazz, Jewish and Muslim music, and church music.
Her father, Yitzhak Levy, was born in Turkey in 1919 and worked as both a composer and cantor. After the creation of the State of Israel, he was appointed head of the Ladino department at Israel’s national radio station. His life’s work was devoted to the collection and preservation of the songs of Sephardic Jews: these Ladino songs had been passed down orally from generation to generation over a period of 500 years.
For the uninitiated, which until last night, I counted myself amongst, Ladino is the collective term for the Judeo-Spanish languages spoken by the Jews of Spain, infusing the original ancient Spanish with Arabic, Turkish, Greek, Portuguese, French, Italian and Hebrew.
One of the world’s endangered languages with fewer than 200,000 Ladino speakers worldwide, it is equal parts beautiful, intoxicating, powerful and melancholy.
It is a perfect musical language for Levy, who accompanied by a guitarist, drummer, bass guitarist and pianist, utterly commanded the stage, joking that growing up she was always asked: “Why are you so melancholy? Why so dramatic?”
A petite frame belied each and every soulful, mournful, powerful performance, typical of those that have led to critical acclaim from the likes of The New York Times and The Sunday Times.
It quickly became apparent that a considerable part of her global appeal is an instinctive, raw ability to traverse culture, politics and faith, with a voice that defies both time and place.
This particular evening offered up two standing ovations to the dynamo in a dramatic black tailored suit, a la flamenco.
She’d said to me: “I don’t think when I create. I sing for you.” And it was clear that every one of the 1500+ members of concert hall audience concurred.
Hyperbole? Perhaps, but it seems only fitting for a performer whose every nuanced move was pure, living, physical drama. Frankly, the concert was more akin to a religious experience, as Levy left the stage to walk amongst the crowd, her fans reached out to hold her outstretched hand as she sang to them, imploring them to sing back, which they did.
Yasmin Levy could have sung the phone book and they couldn’t have worshipped her more.
Dedicating one of her final songs to the women of Iran, the crowd burst into cheering whoops and applause.
“I want you to go home now,” she said at the end. “You’re tired. And when I get back to my hotel, I’m going to have a glass of wine,” she joked, holding up three fingers to indicate it would certainly be more than that.
“A person from Syria or Poland can feel that the same song belongs to them,” were amongst the parting words Yasmin left me with during our conversation. And that if, with her music, she “managed to change just one person’s point of view”, she would have succeeded.
Game. Set. Ladino Match to Ms Levy.
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