Mara Aranda returns to Central Europe, home to so many of her fans. This year’s November-December Tour will take in Germany, the Czech Republic, and Switzerland.
After months of intense work leading up to the release of Mara Aranda & Capella de Ministers latest album La Música Encerrada – ‘Music Locked Away: the Oral Legacy of the Sephardic Diaspora’, a season that has seen Mara perform at the Lyon and Amsterdam Jewish Music Festivals, in France and the Netherlands, as well as across Spain, in Toledo and Valencia, and in Zamora and Morella, the latest tour and the growing number of fans bring 2014 to a close on a high note.
One of the upcoming tour’s performances is to take place at the Spanish Synagogue in Prague (בית הכנסת הספרדי in Herew; Španělská synagoga in Czech). The synagogue is to be found in the Josefov district of the city and in all probability owes its name to its morisco style, similar to that of the world-famous Alhambra Palace in Granada, Spain.
We know that a Jewish temple called ‘The Old School’, built between the 11th and 12th Centuries, once occupied the same spot where the Spanish Synagogue sits today, and was probably erected by Sepahrdic Jews of Byzantine origin. The modern building belongs to the Prague Jewish Museum, which houses a permanent exhibition on the history of the Jewish people in Czechia and Moravia.
Accompanying Mara on tour will be Eduard Navarro, Mediterranean music and wind instrument specialist; J Martinez, hurdy gurdy expert and the owner of one of the largest collections of mediaeval instruments in Europe; and the well renowned Abel García, whose life’s work is the fusion of early music and instrumentation with the contemporary tradition.
And so 2014 rapidly draws to a close, but 2015 promises to be just exciting with Mara Aranda working on the release of her 25th Anniversary album.
