Yasmin Levy


Yasmin Levy is an Israeli singer-songwriter of Judeo-Spanish music.

Biography

Levy is of Sephardic descent. Her parents were immigrants from Turkey. Her late father, Yitzhak Isaac Levy, was a composer and hazzan, as well as a pioneer researcher into the history of the Ladino music and culture of Spanish Jewry and its diaspora, being the editor of the Ladino language magazine Aki Yerushalayim.

Career

With her distinctive and emotive style, Levy has brought a new interpretation to the medieval Judeo-Spanish song by incorporating more "modern" sounds of Andalusian flamenco and traditional Persian music as well as combining instruments like the darbuka, oud, violin, cello, and piano.
Her debut album was Romance & Yasmin in 2000, which earned her a nomination as "Best Newcomer" for the fRoots / BBC Radio 3 World Music Awards 2005, followed in 2005 with her second album La Judería. In 2006, she was nominated again, then in the category "Culture Crossing".
On her second album, La Judería, she also covered the popular songs "Gracias a la Vida" by Violeta Parra and "Nací en Álamo" from the film Vengo, directed by Tony Gatlif, which in its original version won the 2001 César Award for Best Music Written for a Film.
Levy's work earned her the Anna Lindh Euro-Mediterranean Foundation Award for promoting cross-cultural dialogue between musicians from three cultures. In her own words:
I am proud to combine the two cultures of Ladino and flamenco, while mixing in Middle Eastern influences. I am embarking on a 500-year-old musical journey, taking Ladino to Andalusia and mixing it with flamenco, the style that still bears the musical memories of the old Moorish and Jewish-Spanish world with the sound of the Arab world. In a way it is a ‘musical reconciliation’ of history.

Levy is a goodwill ambassador for the charity Children of Peace.

Discography

Full albums