Lily Henley & Duncan Wickel

When singer, fiddler and songwriter Lily Henley set out to make an album of Sephardic Jewish ballads set to new melodies, she was looking for her own way to interpret a critically endangered tradition. On Oras Dezaoradas (out on Lior Éditions Records), Henley highlights the Ladino language, a threatened tongue that fuses old Spanish with Hebrew, Arabic, Turkish, and Persian elements spoken by less than 100,000 people in the world today. What she didn’t expect was to find herself directly connected to centuries of women spread across a forced global diaspora. The album is not a reinterpretation project— Henley’s newly-penned songs are a reclamation and contribution, a living line between her roots in American and Celtic music traditions and the rich history and culture of her Sephardi ancestors.

These old ballads carry the hopes and dreams, daily worries, and existential thoughts of the Sephardi people. They tell stories of everyday life, loss, exile, lovers quarrels and advice-seeking daughters. Known for her expressive songwriting, gifted fiddling, and bell-like vocals, Henley brings new life to these songs and the independent female characters in them—drawing from a well so deep that disparate listeners all feel a connection to their own heritage. With a repertoire encompassing both her Sephardi musical lineage and a broad expanse of influences from across the folk world, in concert Henley weaves ancient and modern languages, cultures and styles to reveal their interconnectedness, and ours.

Award-winning multi-instrumentalist, singer, writer, and inventor Duncan Wickel is “a considerable talent…as persuasive in a traditional ballad as he is country fiddling or ripping through cascading classical flourishes or atonal double-stops,” (The Boston Globe). Duncan has performed with Jon Batiste and Stay Human and Parliament Funkadelic on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Along with Rising Appalachia, he performed on NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert series. He has worked with numerous artists including Molly Tuttle, The Wood Brothers, John Doyle, and Tony Trischka, and has performed in over 24 countries and on every continent on earth inhabited by humans.
Tickets are $20 in advance, $25 at the door general admission; $15 for students with ID. Children under 12 are free. Advance tickets are available here, or if the show is not sold out, you may purchase your tickets at the door before the show.
Doors open one half hour before show time. We accept cash or Venmo only at the door.
The Back Room is an all-ages, BYOB (for those 21+) space, dedicated to (mostly) acoustic music of all kinds. You are welcome to bring your own food and beverages. The venue is ADA accessible. If you need more information or have any questions, please call us: #510-381-1997.
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