12 Facts About Flory Jagoda

Flory Jagoda was known for her composition and interpretation of Sephardic songs, Judeo-Espanyol songs and the Bosnian folk ballads, sevdalinka.

Flory Jagoda was born Flora Papo on December 21,1923, to a Bosnian Jewish family.

Flory Jagoda grew up in the Bosnian towns of Vlasenica and her birth city of Sarajevo.

Flory Jagoda was raised in the Sephardic tradition, in the musical Altarac family.

Flory Jagoda's parents joined her in Split several days later, and after a brief sojourn there they and other Jews who had escaped the Nazis were moved to various islands off the Croatian coast.

Flory Jagoda arrived in the United States as a war bride in 1946, going first to Harry's hometown of Youngstown, Ohio, and later moving to Northern Virginia.

Flory Jagoda's recording Kantikas Di Mi Nona consists of songs her grandmother, a Sephardic folksinger, taught her as a young girl.

Flory Jagoda referred to her four recordings as representing the four musical stages of her life.

In 2002, Flory Jagoda received a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts for her efforts in passing on the tradition of Sephardic songs sung in Ladino.

Flory Jagoda was joined on stage by more than twenty of her students, colleagues, and family members.

Flory Jagoda's music is known and sung by many musicians around the world, but especially by her apprentice, Susan Gaeta, as a soloist and with Trio Sefardi, and by her student, Aviva Chernick.

In later life, Flory Jagoda developed dementia and was unable to sing.