The Mekor Haim Choir directed by Maestro Leonardo Mendonça, will present two concerts, on February 9 and February 16, 2024 at 15:30, in the Porto Holocaust Museum on Rua Campo Alegre 790. The Choir is a project of the Porto Jewish Community and was formed in 2020 with the objective of teaching, learning, and performing Jewish music for members of the congregation and the community at large. The Choir recently performed at the Tu B’Shevat party held in the Mekor Haim Synangogue.
The program will begin with works by the Italian Jewish baroque composer Salomone Rossi, who wrote music for the Sabbath morning service in the synagogue of Mantua in the 17 th century. His settings of the Psalms, the Kaddish, and Adon Olam are lively and melodic. Other songs to be performed will include songs in Ladino, the language of the Jews in Europe following the expulsions from Iberia in 1492 and 1496. Two of the songs ‘La Rosa Enflorece’ and ‘Mama yo no tengo visto’ also have words in Hebrew.
A third set of songs represent the traditions of Jews in Eastern Europe, including Raisins and Almonds, sung in Yiddish, and Wiegala, a lullaby composed in the Terezin concentration camp by Ilse Weber.
All are welcome to attend this concert. For those interested in joining the choir, please contact yonahyaphe@hotmail.com for more information.
