Joe Elias was born into a Sephardic family in Brooklyn. The youngest of seven children, Joe learned his songs on his mother’s knee, Sarah Elias. As a schoolteacher in the 1960’s, he would collect songs from the grandparents of his Sephardic students. He went on to collect songs at the Sephardic Home for the Aged in Coney Island and travelled across the world to other Ladino-speaking communities following this mission.
In 1976 he was invited to perform at the Smithsonian Festival of American Folklife as one of the first performers of Ladino music in this country in the current epoch. After his performance, the Smithsonian urged Joe to form The Elias Ladino Ensemble. He continued performing and teaching Sephardic Jewish songs for over 30 years, resulting in a prolific, yet relatively unknown career. He played at the Philadelphia Folk Festival, the Clearwater Festival, the Smithsonian Institute, and Merkin Concert Hall. He also performed at the inauguration of the New Philharmonic Hall in Philadelphia and was the first to perform at the Holocaust Museum in Battery Park, New York. In 1991 the Spanish Government invited the Ensemble to tour Spain in commemoration of the 500th anniversary of the Edict of Expulsion of the Jews and in 1993, The Elias Ladino Ensemble was the only Sephardic group to perform in Israel at the folk festival in Safed. Back in the States, Joe helped organize concerts in New Mexico as part of a program to bring together the Jewish community with the Escondidos (crypto-Jews who fled the Inquisition and hid in Spanish colonies).
Joe passed away on April 10th, 2010. His musical work lives on through his son, Dan.
See here performance of "Vate Vate" by The Elias Ladino Ensemble, including an introduction by Daniel Elias about his grandmother Sarah Elias, and an original recording of her singing the song.
See also in our website a playlist of the Music of the Jews of Monastir.
