The Ladino Choir of Thessaloniki is a new activity of our association. It started due to the need to form a vocal ensemble for the film “Cloudy Sunday” (20915) by Manousos Manoussakis. Since Kostis Papazoglou was cast for the “role” of the maestro alongside the Choir of the Israeli Community in Thessaloniki by the well-known director, a research on the preservation of the Sephardic (ladino) music had to be carried out.

Today, communities which were almost extinguished due to persecution are coming alive again, i.e. the Jewish settlement of Cambell (Votsi / Kalamaria). With the efforts of the Kalamaria Friends of Music Association and the Municipality of Kalamaria, the Ladino Choir of Thessaloniki was re-established. Since 2019, the ensemble has been rehearsing in Kalamaria, exploring traditional Jewish and Sephardic songs. The choir has appeared on a broadcast by the Deutsche Radio and has been connected to the cultural department of the European Jewish Congress. Through the latter, we are coming into contact with all the latest news of the Sephardic community in the region.

A record that stands out, is collected in the library “Pergamon” of the Athens University. It is titled “Seven Songs to Keep Me Alive: Sephardic music from Thessaloniki, a Tradition That Lives On”. It constitutes of personal testimonies by survivors of the Holocaust and their memory of a Sephardic song: https://pergamos.lib.uoa.gr/uoa/dl/object/2060425#fields. Thus, the Ladino Choir continued performing after the above-mentioned film. Some of its concerts were held at the University of Macedonia (Department of Music Science and Art), at the Olympus festival with the programme “Musical Meta + kinesis”, the repetition of “para thin’ alos 2019” and at the Athens & Epidaurus festival (Odeon of Herodes Atticus) with the programme “The Secrets of Egnatia”. Finally, with the help of Jews and Christians in the city we proceed with the production of new recordings of both bilingual rebetiko songs as well as Jewish and Sephardic music.