Salon Sanctuary Concerts to Open 2026-27 Season With KAHAL, COURT, AND CASBAH
Ensemble Lipzodes performs with mezzo-soprano Kinneret Ely at the free concert requiring reservations.
Salon Sanctuary Concerts will open its new season with Kahal, Court, and Casbah: Convivencia and its Discontents, an original program exploring the music and cultural complexities of pre-Expulsion Spain.
The free concert will take place September 29 at 6 p.m. at St. Paul’s Chapel of Columbia University. Admission is free, with advance reservations required.
The program will be performed by Ensemble Lipzodes, featuring mezzo-soprano Kinneret Ely, Dongmyung Ahn on vielle, and Anna Marsh on recorders, shawm and percussion.
Kahal, Court, and Casbah examines the period known as la convivencia, during which Jewish, Muslim and Christian communities coexisted in medieval Spain. While the era has frequently been idealized as a period of cultural exchange and intellectual flourishing, the program will also confront its history of forced conversions, violence and social stratification.
Through repertoire in Arabic, Hebrew, Castilian and Occitan, the concert will explore the ways musical traditions of the three Abrahamic faiths existed alongside and influenced one another in Spain through 1492 and, following the expulsions, across Morocco, the Balkans, Turkey and beyond.
The program encompasses Andalusian musical traditions alongside Jewish, Christian and troubadour repertoire. Among the works explored are Andalusian noubat, music from the Cantigas de Santa Maria, and Sephardic songs whose melodies survived and evolved through centuries of exile, migration and oral transmission.
Kahal, Court, and Casbah originated with Wolodymyr Smishkewych and is a project of Salon Sanctuary Concerts. The concert is produced in partnership with Music at St. Paul’s Chapel Columbia University, with collaboration from Columbia University’s Department of Music, Hispanic Institute and Institute for Religion, Culture, and Public Life, and support from Professor Susan Boynton and the Natan Fund.
Additional Salon Sanctuary Concerts programming this season will include Les Revolutionnaires: Music, Drama, and the Glittering Spark of Dissent on November 15, featuring actress and playwright Ellen McLaughlin with harpsichordist Aya Hamada.
The season will continue March 14 with Paradise Toss’d: Queen of Heaven, Queens in Hell, featuring Salon Sanctuary Concerts Artistic Director Jessica Gould, oboist Gonzalo Ruiz and musicians of the Camerata Grimani. The season will conclude with Victorious Secret: Love Gamed and Gender Untamed in the Sparkling Courts of the Baroque, featuring soprano Eli McCormack and lutenist Christopher Morrongiello.
Founded in 2009 by Artistic Director Jessica Gould, Salon Sanctuary Concerts presents pre-Romantic music in intimate venues selected to complement the historical context of its repertoire. Its programming frequently uses music as a means of examining history and encouraging understanding among different faith traditions.
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