KGNU’s Doug Gertner hosts musicians Zoë Aqua and Nani Vazana. Zoë, a Denver native and recent Fulbright scholar, shares her experiences studying Transylvanian folk music and klezmer traditions in Romania. She reflects on learning from rural musicians in Transylvania, where she found influences from Jewish, Romanian, Hungarian, and Roma cultures.
Nani, based in Amsterdam with roots in Israel and Morocco, is one of the few artists composing new music in the endangered Ladino language (Judeo-Spanish). She recounts how a visit to Morocco reconnected her with her Ladino heritage, inspiring her to write new songs in the language. Nani also discusses her unique blend of traditional and modern Ladino music, including a composition based on 11th-century homoerotic poetry by a Jewish rabbi (Interview date: 9/17/2024)
Doug Gertner: I’m joined in the studio today by Zoë Aqua and Nani Vazana. Zoë is Denver born and raised and recently spent a year as a Fulbright scholar studying Transylvanian folk music pedagogy in Cluj, Romania. Nani is one of the few artists in the world who write and compose new songs in the endangered Ladino language, Judeo Spanish.
Nani’s on tour in the area from her home in Amsterdam. Zoë and Nani are playing a co-billed show at the Lodge at Woods Boss in Denver tomorrow evening. We’ll have a pair of tickets to give away from that show later in this session, but for now I want to welcome Zoë Aqua and Nani Vazana. Looks like Zoë has a violin in hand, so let’s start by hearingfrom Zoë Aqua.
Zoë Aqua on violin in the Kabaret studio today, fresh off a Fulbright in Transylvania, but I mentioned your roots in Colorado. Welcome home. Talk a little bit about those roots in Colorado by way of introduction, how you grew up playing here and also this Transylvanian adventure, some of the highlights. Bring us up to speed if you don’t mind.
Zoë Aqua: It’s nice to be back on home turf. I grew up in Denver, graduated from Denver School of the Arts. My dad, Hal Aqua, has been around here in KGNU a bit. He’s also a local musician. I grew up mostly studying classical music, and then after university, took a left turn, getting pretty deep into klezmer music, and then got totally obsessed with Transylvanian music. I lived in Transylvania for a couple years studying that music, and now I’m itinerantly touring a lot. I don’t really have one place, but I’ve been back and forth between Europe and here in the States.
Doug Gertner: That almost seems fitting with the region you’ve been studying, that itinerant musicians are probably part of the musical culture there. What went on as you were, I think, based in Cluj, Romania, but made your way throughout Eastern Europe and the continent playing music and studying music.
Zoë Aqua: Yeah, I was studying with musicians in Transylvania, most of whom did not remember playing with Jewish musicians, but there is a history of Jewish musicians in that area going back a long time. But yeah, just learning about them, their styles of playing, traveling around the region quite a bit and spending a lot of time in rural places, which was really fun and quite a different style of life.
Doug Gertner: Welcome back to Colorado. We also want to welcome Nani Vazana to Colorado. Again, can I get your bio? Your roots run from Amsterdam where you’re based, back to Israel, back to Morocco. Can you talk about this music that I mentioned? You’re one of the few people who writes new music in a dying language, or at least endangered language of Ladino. Can we get the Nani intro and Ladino 101 before we hear your next tune?
Nani Vazana: In one sentence, it would be: “the world’s first millennial Ladino songwriter”.
Doug Gertner: Okay, do tell more.
Nani Vazana: I was born in Israel. My grandparents are from Morocco. My grandmother was the one who spoke Ladino and taught me the language. Then I moved to Amsterdam in my twenties to study at the Amsterdam Conservatory. On a visit to Morocco in the old town in Fez, the Medina, I rediscovered my roots because I heard a song that my grandmother used to sing to me when I was a child sung at a street party. That kind of sent me back and I did some research. I relearned the language because of course, I forgot about it. I wasn’t in touch with it for more than 10 years. And then I went to write new songs in Ladino.
Doug Gertner: And that’s been a process. I’ve spun your music on Musica Mundi, our global sounds show. An earlier album seemed to be Ladino music that you had brought to the record, but on your latest album, it’s “Nani Compositions Original Ladino Music”. What are we gonna hear today?
Nani Vazana: I’m gonna do two songs. The first one is called “El Gacela”. It’s an ancient text from the 11th century that I composed music for. It’s by a gay rabbi, I think that’s cool.
Doug Gertner: Do tell.
Nani Vazana: So Shmuel Nagid is – we don’t have saints in Judaism, but that’s the closest thing we have to a saint, he’s a super important rabbi from the 11th century. He was also a scholar and he wrote a lot of poetry. Recently, four years ago, five years ago, they discovered a whole book that he wrote of home erotic poetry. I was touched by that discovery. Just to show that we are all the same.
Doug Gertner: So when is the text from?
Nani Vazana: 11th century.
Doug Gertner: Okay. When the Ladino language was firmly the language of the Sephardic Jews of Southern Europe before the expulsion in 1492 in the Inquisition. Great. Enough of my questions. We’re here for the music. We’ll hear one from Nani, one from Zoë. And then I want to talk about this co-bill as klezmer meets Ladino in Denver.
Nani Vazana: So this is “El Gacela”.
Doug Gertner: Nani Vazana the piano and singing 11th century homoerotic rabbinic poetry. Next up is going to be a tune by Zoë. We’ll hear more about what each of you have played and what you have coming up in Denver and beyond.
Zoë, talk about what we just heard and also the first piece of music you did and how they fit together or where they originate from.
Zoë Aqua: So both pieces are. Traditional music from Romania. That last piece that I played, I learned from one of my mentors, one of my teachers, in Transylvania, whose name is Vasili Rus. His nickname is Postasul, which means the postman because he was the postman of his town for many years. And he’s still known that way. He retired a couple of years ago. He taught me a lot of tunes, a lot of which have, In his mind, a Jewish influence. That’s a region called Maramures near the border of Ukraine and there are tons of different influences there, including from Jews, Ukrainians, Hungarians, Romanians, Roma. It’s a very diverse region in terms of cultural influence, and he’s very interested in how all of those influences combine in the music. Those were some tunes that I learned from him, and the first set that I played at the beginning of the show was from farther east in Romania, from a klezmer family called Bugic, that unfortunately is not around anymore. Some of their descendants now live in the States, but it’s from recordings back in the 70s that they made as a musical family.
Doug Gertner: Spoken like a Fulbright scholar of folk music pedagogy of the region of Transylvania. It sounds like you just went to Cluj and hung out and found the musicians of the region who were playing the kind of music that interested you, and then studied with them, played with them, learned from them, collected those tunes. Is that sort of how the process went?
Zoë Aqua: Yeah, I think what I really wanted to find there and what I did find there is this sort of continuous tradition that’s been passed down oftentimes in musical families that in a lot of ways was a broken chain in klezmer music. With World War II and immigration, and other historical events, the Holocaust, other patterns of things that occurred, we lost that direct chain of transmission. I really wanted to be around that and study with people who were a part of that.
Doug Gertner: You mentioned conflict in the region and being close to the border of Ukraine. Do I recall the timetable correctly? I believe that When Russia invaded Ukraine, you were in the region. Any reflection on that?
Zoë Aqua: Yeah, I think it was hugely shocking for people in the region to have a ground war happening in a country next door. It was very surprising to a lot of people there when Russia actually invaded. There were a lot of refugees coming through Romania and in Cluj. There were a lot of people helping them and really doing a lot, including my landlady who was giving rides to refugees and helping them find housing and stuff.
Doug Gertner: Wow. You’re collecting historic music and you’re there at a time when, unfortunately, history is playing out as it is to this day.
I’m turning to Nani. Just curious, did you want to say more about what brings you to the States? If I have it right, one of the first gigs on this tour was Idaho’s Jewish Festival. Do tell. You’ve been to Idaho, which is more than I can say.
Nani Vazana: Have you not been to Idaho?
Doug Gertner: I’ve never been.
Nani Vazana: That’s fantastic. They have a great river. I can tell you that. I’ve done my sightseeing. They had 2000 people at that festival. That’s incredible. I played with a local band called the Moody Jews. Isn’t that incredible?
Doug Gertner: Yes. And then I looked at your tour schedule. In addition to Denver dates, New Mexico.
Nani Vazana: DC, Chicago, Richmond, Virginia.
Doug Gertner: Very nice. We want to talk about a date coming up tomorrow. Nani Vazana joins Zoë Aqua for a show where each gets to play more music than they get to play at the KGNU Kabaret Studio.
I would send you to fivepointslive.com to learn about the tickets and we’ll offer a pair as we exit the session today. It’s tomorrow night. Doors at 6:30, Show at 7:30, and it’s at the Lodge at Woods Bus in Denver’s Five Point Neighborhood, catty corner to the Mercury Cafe, which many people know, and we’re encouraging folks to stay tuned and then come out and hear these musicians tomorrow night.
What will we expect? I noticed that you haven’t taken up the trombone in the studio today. Hopefully we’ll hear some tomorrow night.
Nani Vazana: Absolutely. We wanted to keep it technically simple today, but tomorrow, we each going to do a full set. Zoë, I think, has an accordian player as a guest. On my set, I’m going to play piano and trombone and sing, of course, but I’m also going to host Zoë’s father, Hal, on one of the songs. And that’s the song that I’m going to do now. Zoë, actually, you should join on that song, too.
Zoë Aqua: Sure, will do. And I just wanted to briefly talk about my collaborator, a great accordionist named Florian Alexandrescu, originally from Bucharest. He’s been in Colorado for quite a while at this point, but he has Romanian roots. So we’re going to be playing some traditional music. We’re also going to be playing some of my compositions. Florian is also playing with me at the Colorado Romanian festival this weekend.
Doug Gertner: Very nice. So you’re in town to play the Colorado Romanian festival. After the gig tomorrow night, where else are you headed on this tour of the states before you head back to Amsterdam?
Nani Vazana: After this I’m going to Richmond, Virginia. It’s the last show on the tour.
Doug Gertner: Okay, what’s happening in Richmond?
Nani Vazana: It’s a show at the JCC. Somehow this specific tour has a lot of Jewish content to it. Previous tours haven’t been like that, but I think it’s a special moment. We can celebrate our culture. Get to people who really want to hear it.
Doug Gertner: Very nice. I really want to hear your full sets tomorrow night. Again, I want to remind folks, your show is tomorrow. Klezmer meets Ladino with Zoë Aqua and Nani Vazana. Wednesday, September 18th, The Lodge at Woods Boss in Denver. Doors at 6:30, show at 7:30.
Zoë Aqua, Nani Vazana, thanks for hanging in the studio. Tell us what you’ll play us out on.
Nani Vazana: I’m going to do a song that I wrote called “Una Segunda Piel”, which means a second skin. It requires audience participation, so if you guys want to join, go ahead. It’s about a ritual in the Sephardic tradition that relates to retirement. My favorite line from the song is “con los años viene el sechel” which means, “with the years, wisdom comes”. I have it on t-shirts and baby onesies too, if you want to get them at the show. If you want to know more about dates, the upcoming U.S. tour will be in February, March, and I’ll be back in Denver, too, so just be there. Check out nanimusic.com or sign up for the newsletter and I’ll hook you up.
Doug Gertner: Nice. And I also know there’s a zoëaqua.com.
Zoë Aqua: Yep. I’m going to be releasing some awesome videos from my Transylvanian synagogue tour soon. So yeah, please check out zoëaqua.com.
Doug Gertner: Nani to play us out. Thank you both for being here. I look forward to seeing you in Denver tomorrow night.
