The Burning Bush specialise in Jewish music with klezmer, Hassidic dances, exotic music from the old Ottoman and haunting, mystical ballads of the ghetto. What drew you to this music?

"I've been involved in Early Music all my professional life, and I'd been in the group The City Waites, which was interested in the popular end of Early Music. I suddenly thought, 'this is not my personal heritage, this is the heritage of other people', and though I felt an affinity with early English music, I haven't got a scrap of English heritage in me."

What happened next?

"I was working for the BBC on a small scale, when it was mentioned that the 500th anniversary of the Jews' expulsion from Spain was about to take place, in 1992. I didn't know anything about the Spanish Jews at all and found that they had a much earlier tradition of folk songs, some of them dating back to medieval times.

"So I did this programme on the Sephardic Jews and their music and discovered how they had left Spain in cruel circumstances. They travelled to Egypt, Morocco, Iraq and Iran and they were welcomed with open arms by the Turkish ruler, who said 'Spain's loss is Turkey's gain'."

How did The Burning Bush come to form?

"I thought, 'let's put a band together to play this music', and straightaway we put some concerts together, and we were really the first band to do this, though there are some others now.

"We pride ourselves on doing music of both the Sephardic tradition and Ashkenazi tradition (the Russian, Polish and East European tradition).

Ashkenazi is much more recent, but we approach it in the same way we approach the Sephardic music. As Early musicians, we come to it with the attitude of 'Let's play it how it would have been played in the Early days'."

Would you call this music Early or traditional music?

"Early music is spreading out to include traditional music, but 'traditional' is a difficult word, because if you keep traditional music alive in this country it's a few people playing in a pub.

"Bring out the Morris dancing bells and everyone falls around laughing."

Your show is described as seductive, enchanting, vibrant and moving.

"The history of the Jews has a lot of pain but there's also a lot of fun and entertainment, hope and joy. We don't take ourselves seriously but we do take the music seriously. There's plenty of banter on stage, and I'm just the sort of person where, if there's a break between songs, I'll pipe up with a wry comment. I can't help it.

"The music we play and the musicians I play with are all of that character."

The Burning Bush, York Early Music Christmas Festival, National Centre for Early Music, York, Sunday, 7.30pm. SOLD OUT.

Updated: 10:20 Friday, December 10, 2004