"the encounter with these gifted musicians, each and every one of them a master in his own field, has been an extremely gratifying human and artistic experience; they donated their sounds to this new harmony, while retaining, nevertheless, the authentic core of each musical language".

Shulamit (Jerusalem November 2008)

Sicily in the East is the name we chose for this unique project that brings together musicians from different Mediterranean lands, religions and musical languages and aims to a renewed encounter between Sicilian music and its Arabic origins.

The program was originally created  for and presented at the International Jerusalem Oud Festival 2008Some of the most beautiful Sicilian Folk Songs, many of them recorded here for the first time, the nearly primordial sound of the Zampogna ( Sicilian bag pipe), the delicate embroidery of the Oud, together with the universal rhythms of the percussions, all blend into an extremely suggestive musical atmosphere, where west and east, ancient and new, develop a renewed intimate dialogue.

The period of Islamic presence in Sicily (900-1100)is considered to be the most flourishing economical and cultural period in Sicily's history: a rare time when Arab, Christians and Jews lived side by side, empowering each other to make the land they dwelled in into a gushing spring of cultural life.