Soprano Meets Bass

SOPRANO MEETS BASS features the singing of the renowned Spanish soprano Ana María Ruimonte, with the arrangements of American bassist and music director Alan Lewine. SMB (Soprano Meets Bass) incorporates elements from medieval Moorish Iberia, classical bel canto, jazz, flamenco, and Israeli/Arabic music in their original interpretations of these songs originating in Jewish medieval Spain. It’s been compared to Pentangle meeting with Charles Mingus and Paco de Lucía at the opera.

Their first album 'Sephardic Treasures' was released on Ansonica, a sister label of Parma Records on July 24th 2020. This debut album of the duo has received features via Beckmesser, Jewish AZ, New York Music Daily, All About Jazz, Contrabass Conversations to name some. It also was aired on radio stations from Honolulu to Birmingham and submitted for a Grammy alongside picking up a silver medal at the Global Music Awards All of the songs on this album originate in medieval Spain’s Jewish communities to the best of our knowledge, though some continue to live as children’s songs and in the flamenco tradition. Melodies and lyrics in Ladino and Spanish were collected by ethnomusicologists in the first half of the 20th Century throughout the (now former) Ottoman Empire in North Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Europe.