Michael Occhipinti supposes he could be Jewish, in some distant way. People tell him he looks like it. Others say he looks Arab, Egyptian or Italian, and he smiles every time: “All of the above,” he jokes. All he knows for sure is his family hails from Sicily, Italy, a Mediterranean melting pot of cultures, religions and dialects. His surname is very similar to the Italian phrase occhi dipinti, meaning “painted eyes,” leading one man he met to curiously hypothesize that his ancestors were Egyptian rabbis.

Occhipinti finds all this fascinating. “The reality is the food, the culture, the music reflects the influence of everything in Sicily,” he says. “In the context of 800 AD, it was a pretty enlightened place.”

Occhipinti’s eyes are, of course, not painted – in fact, they’re rather sleepy, half-squinted as he dreamily chats about his lineage. To Occhipinti, the bygone Sicily of his ancestors is an almost magical place, a bustling home to Christians, Jews and Muslims. His fascination led him, nearly a decade ago, to found the Sicilian Project, a rotating band of musicians who perform his compositions inspired by ancient Sicilian folk songs.

On June 1, he will bring a Jewish-themed iteration of his touring show to the Rex in downtown Toronto as part of the city’s annual Jewish Music Week festival.

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Occhipinti hadn’t specifically focused on the Jewish elements of his music before – Sicilian music is such a deep medley that it’s hard to pinpoint traces of any particular culture – and since Sicily’s Jewish population was expelled after the Spanish Inquisition reached the region in 1493, concrete traces of Jewish culture simply don’t exist there anymore.

“It’s a population that’s gone,” he says. “There are no hard facts. Even trying to find written text is difficult.”