Madre e Hija

Date: Thursday, November 18, 8 pm ET
Price: $30 regular, $27 Friends, $22.50 seniors and students
Three-show Duende Festival package: $80 regular, $72 Friends, $60 students and seniors (Add all three shows to your cart. Discount will be applied at checkout.)
Includes same-day Museum admission

How are artistic traditions transmitted from one generation to the next? From one culture to another?

To answer the question, ethnomusicologist and singer Dr. Judith Cohen and singer-dancer-producer Tamar Ilana will delve deep into their mother-daughter relationship for their flamenco-tinged lecture-performance at the Museum’s Duende Festival.

Because of her mother’s work, Tamar grew up immersed in Sephardic Jewish music and related traditions: at concerts, in the field while Judith did research, at conferences overseas. The daughter’s early exposure to her mother’s musical excavations morphed into an intense fascination with flamenco. Tamar eventually studied with legendary flamenco artists in Toronto and Spain, developing her own expertise and approach to performance.

Are Sephardic music and flamenco like Judith and Tamar — close blood relatives bonded by shared experiences and traditions but each with a personality and trajectory all their own? Through live music and dance and an informal talk featuring images and recordings from the field, Madre e Hija (Spanish for “mother and daughter”) will trace the roots and branches of Judith’s and Tamar’s two musical worlds.

Performers will include:

Dr. Judith Cohen – vocals, storytelling, vielle, percussion 
Tamar Ilana – vocals, dance, percussion 
Matt Sellick – fllamenco guitar
Sardar Mohamadjani – oud

Madre e Hija is presented as part of the Museum’s seventh annual Duende Festival. Returning to the Museum Auditorium for the 2021 edition, it is a joyous celebration of flamenco and its rich connections to diverse cultures, performance styles, and storytelling traditions.