Mor Karbasi Ladino diva to take the stage at Seed

ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News

Mor Karbasi takes the stage on March 25, at The Seed of Sabancı Museum.

Mor Karbasi, acclaimed as the new diva of Ladino music, will be in Istanbul on March 25 to give a concert at The Seed.

Mor Karbasi burst onto the world music scene in 2008 with the release of her first album, and has continued to capture audiences internationally with her gorgeous, exceptional voice and looks to match. She was born in Jerusalem, to a mother from Nazareth of Moroccan descent, and a father from Jerusalem of Persian (Iranian) ancestry. Mor is a young musician whose music is influenced by several cultures, though mainly by her Jewish heritage. A child with such parents no doubt carries a great deal of cultural richness, and indeed Karbasi was exposed to music at an early age by her mother, who would sing Moroccan piyuttim (Jewish holy poems written in Hebrew, composed to Arabian scales and melodies) and Jewish ballads from Andalusia as lullabies. Mor was literally fed these magical songs and melodies with her mother’s milk, in keeping with the centuries old tradition of orally transmitting these songs from mother to daughter.

All her influences come together in her predominately Sephardic Jewish repertoire, from traditional Jewish songs to her own contemporary compositions. Karbasi’s concert appearances include tours of Europe and the USA (including appearances on London’s Trafalgar Square open air stage in 2006 and 2007), festival performances, as well as appearances on national French TV and BBC radio. Her first album, The Beauty and the Sea, was reviewed in the Guardian newspaper, which identified her as “one of the great young divas of the global music scene.”

She has also made guest appearances with groups having complementary styles, such as Koby Israelite, Baroque-fusion Eclipse, Rai band Ludomix, and the Pena Flamenco de Israel.