Alberto Hemsi (1898–1975) was born into a Jewish family in the small city of Cassaba (now Turgutlu) near Smyrna (Izmir) in what was then the Ottoman Empire. The family originated from the Italian city of Livorno and therefore had Italian citizenship. Hemsi collected 232 songs in all and used about a quarter of these for his most significant work, the collection Coplas sefardies. This monumental cycle containing in total 60 compositions for voice and piano, based on Sephardic songs, was published by Hemsi in ten volumes. The first five volumes were published in Alexandria between 1932 and 1938 and the last five from his exile in France between 1969 and 1973.

Hailed as a singer with immense expressive powers and a warm-sounding voice, Tehila Nini Goldstein is a versatile musician whose broad repertoire spans the soprano and mezzo-soprano categories. Her musical interests range from early Baroque through folk music to pieces of contemporary music, some of which have been composed specially for her unique voice. She enjoys switching between opera, song recitals and chamber music.

The pianist and musicologist Jascha Nemtsov was born the son of a gulag survivor in the Siberian town of Magadan in 1963. He grew up in St Petersburg, where he graduated from a special music school and was awarded a gold medal.

Nemtsov has so far made 35 CDs that include numerous world premiere recordings. “As a pianist, Jascha Nemtsov has shown himself to be a worthy descendant of Liszt,” concluded Fono Forum magazine on the occasion of his recording Franz Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsodies. Many of his CDs have received international awards.

Hänssler CLASSIC recently published a five-part CD anthology of piano works by Vsevolod Zaderatsky (HC17035), which is the product of Nemtsov’s ten years of artistic and academic exploration of this outstanding Russian composer.

Extensive text about Alberto Hemsi and his Coplas sefardies songs, as well as the lyrics are in the booklet, written by the pianist Jascha Nemtsov.