This article examines contemporary methods of transmission of one Sephardi Jewish liturgy. Studies of Jewish liturgical music are scarce, and research on the transmission of Jewish liturgical music is still absent. The study described here is a first attempt to address this issue.

Over a span of twenty-five years, I had the privilege of an extraordinary association with Charles Seeger. It began with an introduction by Jaap Kunst, in 1954, and ended with a letter dictated by Seeger and typed by his secretary (but still unsigned), a few days before his death in February, 1979. In our first meeting he was a teacher. In his last letter he was a warm concerned friend, and still a teacher. To say he is missed would be as redundant as saying one misses a brother, a father, a comrade-in-arms, a colleague, a best friend.

On January 10-13, 1999, an ICTM Colloquium was held in Visby, Sweden, sponsored by the Swedish committee of the ICTM as part of the long-term research project “Musik-Medier-Mangkultur” (Music, Media, Multiculturalism), directed by Krister Malm and Dan Lundberg. I was one of the participants, along with the following cast of characters: John Baily, Dieter Christensen, Beverly Diamond, Salwa El-Shawan Castelo-Branco, Eva Fock, Josep Marti i Perez, Pirkko Moisala, Pieter Remes, and from Sweden, Hans Huss, Henrik Karlsson, Dan Lundberg, Krister Malm, and Owe Ronström. Presenters were asked not to give formal presentations, but rather thematic introductions to extensive discussions, which were taped and transcribed. Malm and Lundberg later created diagrams and tabulations of the terminology introduced and the concepts raised by the sessions, and asked me to use the conference papers and discussion as a springboard for addressing the issues raised at Visby.