New York music legend Avram Pengas is a virtuoso guitarist, bouzouki player, and singer whose music is rooted in the Mediterranean tavernas of Athens. Born into a musical family of Romaniote and Sephardic Jewish-Greek heritage, Pengas was raised in Jaffa, and a budding career as a performer in Greek clubs in Israel brought him to New York in 1970 to participate in the legendary scene of Turkish-owned clubs along 8th Avenue that were the pulse of Hell’s Kitchen from the 1920s to the 1970s. A popular performer in the local Greek and Sephardic/Mizrachi communities, Pengas and his Noga Band cook up a multicultural stew of rhythms and modes spanning Greece, Turkey, Armenia, Israel, and the Levant.
Presented by the Museum and the Center for Traditional Music and Dance, watch the livestream of this concert, performed in the Museum’s Edmond J. Safra Hall, below.
This program is sponsored in part through the Battery Park City Authority community partnership.