For the past decade, Sarah Aroeste has been at the forefront of the revival of Ladino music, drawing on her family’s roots in Greece and Macedonia to showcase the oft-overlooked and even “left-for-dead” music of Jews of the Spanish-speaking world – as opposed to, say, “klezmer,” which primarily is the music of Yiddishspeaking Jews from Central and Eastern Europe, and which has become nearly synonymous with “Jewish music” to many. Up until now, Aroeste’s efforts, which include the CDs “A La Una” (2003) and “Puertas” (2007), have dealt mostly with traditional arrangements, with only hints of the sort of cross-cultural fusions – such as the kinship between Ladino and Afro-Cuban music – and contemporary influences that have long become de rigueur in efforts by her Ashkenazic, Yiddish-speaking brethren. No more. With “Gracia,” due out this month, Aroeste has landed Ladino solidly in a place that parallels the most cutting-edge work in Yiddish and klezmer by bands like Golem and the Klezmatics. Whether she is dealing with traditional melodies and lyrics, such as “La Comida La Manana,” or original compositions, Aroeste makes music that jumps out of the speakers with the sound and impact of a new album by Shakira or Madonna, with both of whom Aroeste has more than a little in common in terms of far-ranging vision – vocals that soar above dance floor rhythms and an intuitive understanding of how ethnic music can have a widespread appeal going far beyond an insular audience. This also because Aroeste – who has family in the Berkshires and who grew up frequently attending Tanglewood on her way to studying to be an opera singer –proudly proclaims “Ladino rocks,” as she and producer Shai Bachar prove on the eleven tracks that comprise “Gracia” – named for the medieval Sepharid heroine, Dona Gracia Naci, who is remembered for saving hundreds from the Spanish Inquisition, and whom Aroeste connects to late-20thcentury American feminist icon Gloria Steinem via a sound sample. As proof, Aroeste takes the traditional Ladino number, “La Vida Do Por El Raki,” and boosts it with thundering drums and stinging electric guitar that bring to mind Led Zeppelin experiments such as “Kashmir” that connected Middle Eastern and Indian music to hard rock. The recording boasts an international cast of musicians in New York, Israel, Morocco, Uruguay, Spain, Colombia, Russia, and more, plus a sixteen-piece string orchestra on many of the tracks. Aroeste gets help from an impressive cast of guest artists, including Vanessa Hidary, Amos Hoffman (of the Avishai Cohen band), Roni Ivrin and Mark Kakon (from the Idan Raichel Band), Nir Graf (Noa, Rita, Shalom Hanoch), Oz Noy (Cyndi Lauper, Phoebe Snow, Bill Evans), Samuel Torres (Lila Downs, Arturo Sandoval), and the aforementioned Gloria Steinem. But in spite of the lush, big sound settings by Bachar and the swirling orchestral and dance-floor arrangements, “Gracia” is Aroeste’s creation from top to bottom. It’s a reflection of her musical and cultural vision, and more than anything, of her powerful and expressive voice. So much of Jewish history and contemporary Jewish experience speaks through her; what’s different, here, is that it speaks literally and figuratively in a language and accent that you rarely, if ever, have heard. With “Gracia,” that’s about to change!