Ithaca College

 The ensemble Journey West will provide a rare opportunity to hear music of Eastern Europe and the Middle East in a free concert in the Hockett Family Recital Hall in the Whalen Center for Music at 8:15 pm on Saturday, September 9.

 For this concert Journey West will be joined by Imad Yassin, an Iraqi violinist, and Basam Batbouta, a riq (a tambourine-like instrument) player from Syria. The program will emphasize the relationship of Jewish musical traditions to the regions where Jews have lived, and Journey West will be performing selections from the Mizrahi (Middle Eastern and North African), Sephardic and Ashkenazic diasporas. Combining projected maps with music, the group will trace the Sephardic Diaspora as it left Spain in 1492.  Journey West also will portray the influence of Roma, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman classical music on the development and evolution of Klezmer music via the musical folk traditions of Romania.  For more information see journeywestmusic.com.

The concert is free and open to the public.  It is sponsored by the Ithaca College Jewish Studies Program, the Ithaca College Office of Diversity, Inclusion, and Engagement, the Ithaca College Department of Anthropology, Istanbul Turkish Kitchen, Ithaca Welcomes Refugees, and Group 73 of Amnesty International, Ithaca, NY.

Individuals with disabilities requiring accommodations should contact Rebecca Lesses at rlesses@ithaca.edu or (607) 274-3556. We ask that requests for accommodations be made as soon as possible.