Aviva Chernick and La Serena Quartet: The Feeling of Free

Enjoy a free, music-filled midday break in the O'Brien Atrium. Bring your meal, grab a spot, and experience incredible live performances by talented artists—it's the perfect way to recharge for the rest of the day!

Singer and bandleader Aviva Chernick reimagines traditional Judaeo-Spanish folk music with intimacy and emotional range. Aviva and her band bring this musical legacy into the present.

Aviva’s soaring vocals in the Judaeo-Spanish language, Ladino, as well as Hebrew, Yiddish and English, combine with the musical talents and vocals of her amazing band: the textural, reverberant guitar, oud and keys of Demetri Petselakis (Greece), the deep grooves of Waleed. Abdulhamid (Sudan) on bass, the virtuosic Persian hand percussion of Naghmeh Farahmand (Iran), and the sublime vocal stylings of Maryem Tollar (Egypt).

Aviva was the first Canadian to be awarded a Virginia Folk Life apprenticeship to study with Sephardic musician Flory Jagoda whose music she celebrates in her most recent album, La Serena. As a leader of her own ensembles, Aviva has toured internationally, and as a guest of the Canadian Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates at Expo 2020 in Dubai.