Laura Elkeslassy — يا غربتي Ya Ghorbati | Divas in Exile — October 13th, 2026

Tuesday, October 13th, 2026

doors 5:30 PM · the record at 7:00 · Kissa Kissa, 667 Franklin Avenue, Crown Heights

Laura Elkeslassy’s Ya Ghorbati يا غربتي | Divas in Exile, four days after the vinyl drops

Cover Art courtesy of Ayin Press
Arabic Album Title Typography: subtype.studio

From the haunting of oud that opens “Yafa Vetama,” Laura Elkeslassy’s debut album Ya Ghorbati (يا غربتي) (or “Oh, my exile”) unlocks a portal to a landscape where borders vanish and music reigns. Ya Ghorbati (vinyl out on Ayin Press October 9th) weaves together folk and sacred music from the Maghreb, ranging from traditional Andalusi style, to popular Chaabi, to Francarabe cabaret.

A spellbinding and raucous work of Judeo-Arab retro-futurism, the album unearths the music of early-to-mid 20th century legends like Line Monty, Zohra Elfassia, Habiba Msika, and Salim Halali, revealing the ancestral soundscape carried by families like Elkeslassy’s—the Brooklyn-based musician born and raised in France, with ancestral Jewish roots in Morocco.

Ya Ghorbati features: Ira Khonen Temple (Cabaret on Broadway, Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish, Off Broadway) on music direction, keys, accordion and production; Turkish-born violinist Eylem Basaldi (Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, Symphony Hall, and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon) on violin and production; Iraqi multi-instrumentalist Yoni Avi Battat (The Band’s Visit, Broadway National Tour) on Oud and guitar; April Centrone, co-founder and lead percussionist of the New York Arabic Orchestra, and internationally celebrated Moroccan American percussionist Nizar Dahmani on drums and percussion; Canadian jazz bassist Zoe Guigueno and multi-award-winning Tunisian bassist, Marwan Allam on bass; on Oud and violin, globally acclaimed oudist Rachid Halihal, deemed “one of Morocco’s best ambassadors of music and culture” (Morocco World News).

At once generous and personal, earthly and spectral, Ya Ghorbati conveys Elkeslassy’s longing for what’s lost in an almost omnitemporal voice, crystalline and immediate through the vibrations of past voices.

Chris Gilroy from Grammy Award winner Douglass Recordings recorded and mixed it, Dan Coutant from Sun Room Audio mastered it.

The vinyl is out on October 9th. We are playing it on the 13th.

Laura Elkeslassy in Marrakech. Photo by Miriam Goi.

• The recordYa Ghorbati يا غربتي | Divas in Exile, Ayin Press
• Vinyl releaseOctober 9th, 2026
• Release concertOctober 11th — Habibi Festival at Joe’s Pub
• HereTuesday, October 13th, the record at 7:00 PM

Free and open to the public. No cover, no ticket.

Reserve a table

All upcoming nights lauraelkeslassy.com The record on Ayin Press