COMPAS teaching artist Nanilo sings rich vocal arrangements of Yiddish, Sephardic and Eastern European folk songs. Singing in the tradition of lineages of women’s group singing, the duo lifts up the complex harmonies of these musical traditions entwined in the simple joys of singing together. In performance, Nanilo offers translation and storytelling of all the songs they sing, illuminating the real life struggles and longing embedded in the lyrics of the songs. Journeying through Bosnian ballad songs, Yiddish lullabies, Hebrew devotional and festival tunes, and Ladino songs of longing and loss, the duo makes connections between their own journeys learning this music and the ways that music has traveled with communities of people across borders and time. Nanilo invites audiences to draw connections to their own families’ stories of immigration, heritage, and roots, and uses music as the key to unlock doors of understanding.

Nanilo is a duo of women singing songs of diaspora. Nanilo traces musical lines to tradition from Jewish and Eastern European roots. Singing entirely in the songs’ original languages, including Yiddish, Russian, Ladino, Hebrew, and more, the duo showcases the way music has moved through generations of immigrants arriving to North America. With the tight harmonies of a family band and the accompaniment of a banjo, fiddle, and drum, Nanilo brings you onto a familiar front porch — if your front porch were in Grajevo or Breznitsa. The duo finds a fusion between traditional sounds and an Americana sensibility, spinning out stories of love, longing, and liberation that are carried in the lyrics of their rich traditions. In workshops and performances, Nanilo loves to invite audiences into participation in the music, teaching and learning simple melodies and verses in the songs’ original languages, using music to open the door to stories of cultural change and migration.

This program is funded by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.