Folk Arts - Master Artist - Sheila Fox

Sheila Fox is a Yiddish and Ladino vocalist and a fourth generation musician from an Ashkenazic background. She has had a tremendous impact on the Sephardic Jewish community in the United States. Her commitment to preserving the Sephardic oral history and songs has led her to create new ways for third generation Jews to re-connect with their songs and mother tongues of their grandparents. In her CD project entitled Our Songs, Fox has already preserved some of the music of this community and plans to distribute the CD free to elders.

A member of the Kosher Red Hots, Fox and her band provide Jewish music and dance for weddings and bar and bat mitzvahs and events. Their music includes clarinet, accordion, bass, guitar, and vocals. The Kosher Red Hots play music that is evocative and fun, nostalgic , yet contemporary, while reaching back to Eastern European and Mediterranean ancestries.

Sheila Fox also works as an entertainer and therapist in Seattle’s Jewish elder community for the past ten years. She works with Jewish people that have Alzheimer’s or other forms of dementia, and sees the benefits when they hear songs in Yiddish and Ladino. She believes there is a definite valuable artistic and therapeutic benefit in the process of interviewing and singing.

Whether she is performing live, on the radio, for children, or college students, her role, as a vocalist is to be a verbal communicator through songs that inform us about the history, emotions, and everyday life of our forebears.

Sheila was a recipient of a 2007 Folk Arts Apprenticeship grant.