Jazz vocalist Kat Parra explores the exciting and vibrant music of the Sephardic Jews, inviting the listener on a journey, traveling from the Iberian Peninsula, with all of its Moorish influences, across the ocean into Latin America. In aiding in the preservation of Ladino, a dying language of the Spanish Jews, it is Parra’s hope to inspire and lift the universal consciousness into a conversation of hope and peace between all religions and cultures of the world. Parra will be joined by musical director and pianist Murray Low, Masaru Koga (woodwinds), Stephanie Antoine (violin), Peter Barshay (acoustic bass), Katja Cooper (drums) and Paul van Wageningen (drums). (Narrated Program.)

Kat Parra Photo by Michelle Longosz © 2007

Kat Parra has leapt beyond the boundaries of the typical latin jazz singer. With her thirst for the exploration of world rhythms and tonalities, she has developed a style of music that encompasses sounds that both transcend and bend the stereotypical definition of latin jazz. She has incorporated not only afro-cuban music, but also added afro-peruvian, middle eastern, south american folklore as well as nueva trova. Most interestingly, she has also been developing, along with her musical director Murray Low, new arrangements of Sephardic music, the music of the Spanish Jews sung in the dying language of Ladino. Kat sings fluently in English, Spanish and Portuguese as well. With this multi-lingual and multi-musical experience, Kat Parra is able to transport her audiences to an exciting and vibrant journey of world and latin music.

Parra has achieved a great amount of critical acclaim and success since leaving her corporate hi-tech job to pursue a full-time musical career. Not only has she been signed to a two CD contract with Wayne Wallace’s independent record label, Patois Records, but she has been invited to perform in Brazil, Mexico, Chicago and Seattle as well as top-tier venues around the San Francisco Bay Area (ie San Jose Jazz Festival, Sonoma Jazz Festival, San Francisco Summer JazzFest, Yerba Buena Gardens, de Young/Intersection for the Arts, Jazz at Pearls, Kuumbwa Jazz Center, etc). In March of 2008, Parra was awarded a Zellerbach grant to further develop her interpretations of Sephardic music. Since receiving this grant she has engaged four world-renowned arrangers to help her create a musical environment that reaches deep into a world music sound. Audiences are continually enthralled with this new approach to the ancient music of the Spanish Jews.