Nani Noam Vazana - Interview

by Lisa Torem

published: 30 / 8 / 2023

Lisa Torem speaks to vocalist, songwriter and instrumentalist Nani Noam Vazana, who is touring internationally in support of fourth studio album, ‘Key Haber,’ a tribute to the Ladino language

Article

Nani Noam Vanzana is not only a multi-spectrum artist, whose triple-octave voice rings with passion, and whose diverse material reflects historical and anthropological thought; she’s committed to saving the rapidly, disappearing language of Ladino through celebratory melodies, souk-inspired rhythms and carefully curated stories. In this interview with Pennyblackmusic, Nani talks about the decisions she made regarding her recently released album, ‘Key Haber’ and why preserving language and culture is now, more than ever, paramount to her artistic and holistic vision. PB: Congratulations on your fourth solo album, ‘Key Haber’. Your previous album, ‘Andalusian Brew’ celebrated the Spanish culture. Why did you decide to switch cultural gears at this time? NNV: My previous album ‘Andalusian Brew’ explored the traditional Sephardic repertoire, songs that I heard at my grandmother’s house when I was four-years-old. This is the first time in my life I released a cover album, because I felt like I had to get myself reacquainted with tradition before I could put my best foot forward and write my own songs in the endangered Ladino language. So, I cherry-picked the songs that sounded the most beautiful and diverse to me out of the main 120 ‘Ladino standards’ and wrote ten new arrangements to these classics on ‘Andalusian Brew’. After performing with traditional repertoire for three years I felt a yearning to write my own songs in Ladino. This led me to explore the past while looking into the future. I believe that good artists will always reflect the times they live in, so even when you write a timepiece, which several publications defined ‘Ke Haber’ with, it had to be written from the perspective of a millennial, like me, in order to sound truly authentic. So, I dove into the exploration of the language and somehow didn’t find a lot of secular work. I visited a scholar in Leiden who showed me a lot of texts at an ancient Jewish library but I wanted more. So, I dug deep into medieval poetry and started learning the rhythm of the stanzas. Based on existing rhythmical formations I started writing my own lyrics in Ladino, concerning questions we ask ourselves today and I must admit I found a lot of correlation between where we are now and the medieval Iberian population. NNV: Why did you concentrate on presenting these tracks in the Ladino language at this time? I write in Ladino because when I look at the past I see the future. History tends to repeat and I found myself facing the same type of questions medieval Iberian Jews asked themselves 1000 years ago. For instance, a text I found from the 13th century presents a transformation of a transgender, a 10-year-old girl who comes out to her parents because she feels she is a boy. Her father tries to banish her from the family but the mother steps in and stands up and accepts her daughter as a boy. In 2019 my song ‘Hey You’ was used for a campaign to raise awareness for trans teens that were being kicked out of their homes. It’s not a coincidence that we’re being confronted with the same topics again and again. A language, just as musical style, are tools to express emotion and I feel that in this point of my life I express myself and perhaps through a communal need in the best way through the bridges of Ladino language, which will be transportive and transformative at the same time. PB: Your grandmother spoke Ladino. You spent time cooking with her up until her death when you were twelve-years old. What were your impressions of her as a woman and mentor? NNV: My grandma hardly spoke Hebrew and my father forbade us to speak Ladino or Arabic at home. I was almost never left alone with my grandmother so I can’t say I had a lot of opportunities to learn from her wisdom. However, when I did spend time with her, she was always kind and open. She wanted to make me feel good and take care of me. She told me stories I never heard elsewhere. My mom said my Nona (grandma) made them up, but later when I did my research about Ladino I learned they were traditional Sephardic fairytales. Ladino was, for me, a language for the senses, in it I experienced music with the songs that my grandma sang in the kitchen; smells and food followed, and magical realism through the stories she told me. It was the language of mystery and witchcraft, because we spent a big chunk of our time creating new stuff with it. My Nona was stubborn, but in a very nice way. She never argued, but she always had it her way. If my father caught us speaking Ladino, she said. “Oh I always sing or recite when I cook. I didn’t notice.” I think she taught me a valuable lesson in that sense, that you should never give up on something you love so deeply. I think it helped me pursue my dreams in life. PB: Ladino is considered a matriarchal language, according to your online presence. The men studied Hebrew, while the women exchanged recipes and gathered news in this ancient tongue. Your father discouraged you from learning the language. Why did this prospect upset him? How did you further your studies? NNV: My father’s family came from Morocco as refugees, a school in their city was attacked by terrorists and 44 children died. They escaped a situation which could have become grim for them too. My father never spoke about this openly but I think he wanted to compartmentalize and leave his past behind. When he speaks about his childhood, his stories start around the age of thirteen. In this year two transformative things happened: he had his bar-mitzvah, which made him feel like a man so he started taking responsibility at home, taking care of his younger siblings and running the household together with his older sister. Later on, this year he was adopted as a Kibbutz member and basically left home to pursue a new life, in an identity he preferred; he didn't want to be Moroccan anymore, he wanted to be 100% Israeli. PB: How would you describe your comprehension of the language? Are you conversationally fluent or do you know essentially enough to write lyrics for your melodies? NNV: I’m a better Ladino singer than I am a speaker. I did take lessons and did a lot of research throughout two years but my experience of the language is very much from the point of view of a child. I think that’s why my writing has a lot of wonder in it, because I can allow myself to be a child again when I write in Ladino. It’s a different experience to writing in English or in Hebrew, because perhaps I know too much, and therefore I write with criticism, with a poignant point of view, with sarcasm even, which isn’t what Ladino is about for me. So, I’m happy to revel in the awe of what a child experiences when they learn some words for the first time. In a way, it’s the most creative writing I have ever done. Sometimes having to piece the pieces together makes you go the extra mile you wouldn’t go should you have known the way ahead of you. PB: While most of the songs are original, some are mash-ups or covers. What was your criteria for recording a non-original song? NNV: For me to record a cover means that I have a special bond with the song. ‘Shape Of My Heart’ is a song I covered a lot in my shows, because I really connect to its topic - the constant search for the sacred geometry of chance is something we all do in our lives constantly. We call it luck but it feels like a force that moves life in a very natural way. My grandmother believed in luck and every time I visited her she gave me a bracelet that she believed would grant me luck or protect me from the evil eye. I wrote the song “Mi Korazon” about that same fleeting encounter we have with luck sometimes, and it’s dedicated to my grandmother. This is why I mashed up “Mi Korazon” and ‘Shape Of My Heart’ together and also recreated the bracelets my grandmother used to give me when I was a child. I always take a bunch with me to the shows; you can find them on my website. PB: You have a powerful, multi-octave voice and you play trombone. What kind of musical training have you had or are you self-taught? NNV: I’ve been studying music since I was five years old. I started with piano lessons at the local music school, added trombone lessons when I was nine and the voice came later when I was 21. I was afraid to take voice lessons before, because I was afraid it’ll change my voice, which actually happened. And then I had to unlearn everything in order to find my own way eventually. I continued to professional education at the Jerusalem Music Academy (where I currently teach), the Buchman-Mehta school of music and the Amsterdam Conservatory. I also teach at the London Performing Academy of Music and the Codarts University Rotterdam. PB: The track, ‘Fada De Mi Korazon’ comes across as a pure love song. I believe, it would translate as such, even if the listener didn’t understand the words. I speak Spanish so I recognized the word for heart, but it almost doesn’t matter because your emotions convey such passion. What does this song mean to you? NNV: ‘Fada de Mi Korazon’ is a love song between mother and daughter. It’s based on the ancient Sephardic ritual ‘Las Fadas’. It’s a ceremony to protect baby girls from the bad fairies of the underworld, dating back to medieval Spain. Two weeks after the birth of the child you'd invite family and friends to your home and the guests would take turns holding the baby, offering blessings and speaking about their hopes for this new life. The ritual is rooted in a popular folk tale about bad fairies, feeling upset they weren’t invited to celebrate the child and attempting to harm her (much like the Sleeping Beauty), passing the baby around in a circle was meant to fool the bad fairies into thinking the guests were actually good fairies, protecting the baby. The lyrics are sung from a mother’s perspective, to a baby girl. She blesses and comforts her and calls her ‘Fairy Of My Heart’ - Fada De Mi Korazon. PB: ‘No Kero Madre’ is a tender ballad, but the story line belies a deeper meaning. It revolves around an inter-generational fission. The parent wants the daughter to be happy about an arranged marriage. The daughter wants no part of it. When you rehearsed the song, did you conceptualize it as a duet, with oppositional forces? NNV: I wrote ‘No Kero Madre’ as a dialogue between mother and daughter. As you can see this topic is like a golden thread throughout the album. That’s because Ladino is a very domestic, matriarchal language and it presents a point of view we don't often find in mythology and anthropology. The point of view of the ordinary woman, who is there to make the trains run on time. We call it ‘Balabusta’ which means “the boss of the house.” The unique love between mother and daughter is highlighted in Sephardic culture, and is considered the highest value of love there is in existence. As in the song ‘No Kero Madre,’ even though they don’t see eye to eye, they are still there for each other, in acceptance, in humour, in understanding and they can out their opinions no matter what. PB: ‘Una Segunda Piel’ translates to “a second skin.” The lyric is conveyed exuberantly on the audio and also on a delightful video. Does the title reflect your relationship to music? NNV: I wrote ‘Una Segunda Piel’ (A Second Skin), about a Sephardic alternative passing away ceremony - La Mortaja. When you reach retirement age, you throw a party where your family and friends sow around you the shroud of the dead. You lay down and meditate and think about everything you'd like to leave behind. Then you emerge from this chrysalis, as if shedding your dead skin. You are reborn, as your new, beautiful, best self. Once I was asked in an interview, “What’s your first association when you hear the word death?” My answer was “white.” The video for ‘Una Segunda Piel’ conveys that notion, where the true self is lying on the table, the soul gets to wander a white plane where everything can happen and ends up meeting itself numerous times. As you can see my character is duplicated in animation on the screen and I dance with my own soul-level duplicates. The style used in the song is Calypso, which originates in Trinidad and Tobago. The Caribbean feel gives the song an extra punch of joy, that I really like, because this feels like such a joyful moment, a true rebirth. When I tell the story of the song in the shows you can often hear an “oh” in the room, but when I start singing, people join me and by the end of the song, everybody’s moving to the beat and singing with me the “tu du du.” PB: ‘Cok Sem Severim’ features unrestrained vocals. You’re inspired, in part, by Turkish musical elements. This song led me through the multi-sensorial souks of that crossroad country. Was that the plan? NNV: With ‘Çok Seni Severim’- the song that opens the album, I mash up a traditional Ladino song with a traditional Turkish song. Not a lot of people know that the biggest community of Ladino nowadays is based in Turkey. That’s because after the Spanish expulsion a lot of Jews found refuge in the Ottoman Empire. I wanted to showcase that intricate culture and its musical influences on Sephardic music. PB: After you complete your current tour, which featured a concert at The Library of Congress, the North Carolina Folk Festival and the Lotus Festival, you will tour Canada In November. What will that tour consist of? NNV: This year's world tour that consists of sixty-seven shows will take me across the US, Canada and Europe and will focus on my new album ‘Ke Haber.’ Most of the songs in the shows are taken from the album. I’ll also incorporate several traditional songs and surprise covers (different to each show). I’m on the road mostly with my trio except several solo shows in more intimate settings. I’m really looking forward to seeing everyone on the road again especially after the long covid break. In Canada I’ll play at the Chutzpah Festival, host a panel at Mundial Montreal and play at ArtsPlace Canmore and DROM Toronto. You can find the full tour list on NaniMusic.com/Tour. PB: You run a DIY site. How has your audience reacted and what’s been your biggest takeaway? NNV: DIY music is a platform for emerging musicians to acquire all the tools needed to launch an independent international music career on their own. I started it in 2019 due to high demand for consultancy hours I was getting. Colleagues and aspiring musicians noticed my career was taking off and around 2017 I was already receiving five requests per day. It became apparent that the industry is in dire need of a method and, since I couldn’t convert to a full-time consultant, as music has always been my strongest calling, I decided to make this website to give something back to the community. At the beginning I received some difficult criticism, especially from agents and managers, because they thought my resources jeopardized their work. However, with time they came around, and now I host panels with several agents on sustainable relationships between artists and programmers within the music industry. I’m lucky that my audience has always been receptive to my multifaceted work. When you find your true audience, they will be open to any positive art, innovation and knowledge. This would be my first advice to any emerging artist, identify who your true audience is, so you can make them into a family. Once this is intact, a lot can happen. PB: Final question: If you could sum up your aspirations in one sentence, what would you say? NNV: I share my roots journey in the hope it’ll inspire others to look for their own roots. PB: Thank you.