The Elias Ladino Ensemble

The Elias Ladino Ensemble mixes new and old, Western and Middle Eastern styles. The songs are in Ladino, the dialect of old Castilian Spanish that is the Sephardic equivalent of Yiddish. Joseph Elias, who started the group in 1976, plays a modern guitar. His son Daniel plays the clarinet, but bends pitches to suggest a Middle Eastern sound. Scott Wilson plays an electrified oud (an Arabic lute) and kanun (a zither), and Richard Khuzami plays dumbeg (a tuned drum).