Tamar Ilana

Dubbed “Canada’s own pan-global diva” by Jesse Cook, Tamar Ilana is a Toronto-born multifaceted artist who grew up on stage singing in multiple languages, touring internationally and dancing flamenco. Of mixed Jewish-Indigenous-Romanian-Scottish descent (a true Canadian!), she sings in over a dozen languages, including Spanish, Hebrew, Arabic and Romanian, and is heavily influenced by the flamenco, Sephardic and Balkan traditions. Tamar’s music reflects her personal cultural history, having spent much of her childhood accompanying her ethnomusicologist mother gathering songs from remote villages on the edge of the Mediterranean, and also the multicultural city of Toronto, where she lives and creates with artists from all over the world. With her band Ventanas, Tamar is about to release her third album, MISTRĀL. “I’m a huge admirer,” says Leslie Feist.