When I was little, my grandmother taught me Ladino in secret. My father forbade the language at home, so we spoke it only when we were alone. We baked baklava, peeled beans in the kitchen, and she sang while she cooked. Those songs became our secret language.

When she passed away, I was only 12. Little by little, I forgot Ladino and devoted myself to classical music and jazz. I never imagined those childhood melodies would find me again.

Years later, after a concert in Morocco, I travelled to my grandmother’s hometown. Walking through the old streets, I suddenly heard a familiar melody. It was one of the songs she used to sing to me when I was four years old. Time seemed to stop. In that moment I realized these weren’t just beautiful songs: they were pieces of my family’s history that had survived for centuries, carried from one generation to the next.

That journey led me back to Ladino. I spent years studying the language, learning from elders, comparing old recordings, and rediscovering the rich Sephardic musical tradition my grandmother had quietly passed on to me.

Andalusian Brew was the first fruit of that journey.

This album brings together ten traditional Ladino songs that my grandmother loved most. They are songs of love, longing, humor, weddings, lullabies, and everyday life, melodies that travelled from medieval Spain across North Africa, the Balkans, and the Middle East, surviving because families continued to sing them around their tables.

Recording this album felt like sitting in my grandmother’s kitchen once again. Every melody carries her warmth, her laughter, and the generosity with which she shared her culture. These songs are not museum pieces to me; they are living memories.

Whether these melodies remind you of your own family or introduce you to Ladino for the very first time, I hope Andalusian Brew invites you into that kitchen, where something sweet is always waiting on the table, stories are told through song, and music keeps a language, and the people who spoke it, alive.