Ladino singer Lily Henley began her Sephardic music journey in earnest with the release of her 2022 album: “Oras Dezaoradas”. She has performed in folk festivals across the US and the world, sharing Ladino language and almost forgotten Jewish traditions with audiences everywhere. 

Her 2024 Community Creative Fellowship was the first opportunity for Lily to dive more deeply into work with the Jewish community. Lily spent her fellowship in residence with Temple Emanual of Newton, where she held sessions with Hebrew school students, and congregants, and also held performances for the congregation. Lily brought her own Sephardic traditions to Temple Emanuel while also learning their Ashkenazi traditions, and found new ways to share and blend her Sephardic heritage.  

During the fellowship, Lily wrote new music in Ladino, English, and Hebrew inspired by her fellowship experience, interaction with community members, their stories, and the atmosphere at Temple Emanuel. 

In this video, Lily prepares a sweet tune by Sephardic icon Flory Jagoda while waiting for the Hebrew school students:

Here, Lily is thanking Flory Jagoda who wrote this song and who is widely credited with preserving Sephardic Jewish music and language. Read about Flory and her contributions to the world of Sephardic culture upon which Lily builds. 

Cantor Elias Rosemberg from Temple Emanuel of Newton said, “Lily has been a great addition to Temple Emanuel. She’s fabulous. She’s super talented and very different from everything that we do at Emanuel. Many, many seniors wanted to adopt her, like, you know, you’re my grandchild! Thank you so much for exposing us to this. We had no idea about this type of music. We had no idea about the Jewish culture of the Sephardim.” 

During her fellowship, Lily also produced new Sephardic melodies. In this video produced with her collaborator Duncan Wickel, they filmed this beautiful piece in in Akira Satake’s pottery studio in Asheville NC.

This song “Alta Alta Va La Luna” is sung in the Ladino language which is a language spoken by Sephardic Jews living mostly in Israel, the Balkans, North Africa, Greece, and Turkey. An intrinsic part of Parkway Sessions is their ability to be mobile. In our studio we created an environment that is cozy and well suited for capturing live performances and our equipment is modular in nature, ready to be packed up at a moments notice.