Yesterday was a huge day for the Brits in Fez. British a capella singers, Black Voices, overcame severe illness at Heathrow and just managed to make it direct from the airport in Fez to the Batha Museum in time to perform. For an exhausted and recovering group they did a great job. Their rendition of the famous Kahil Gibran poem "These children are not your children", was heart-wrenchingly beautiful as was the powerful Zulu anthem Sinzani. On a day when the 42 degree celsius temperatures were energy sapping, they gave a great performance.
Following the performance there was a cocktail party reception hosted by the British Consul from Rabat, Steven Firstbrook and the Vice-Consul, Anne-Marie Teeuwissen.
To our delight the Brits lowered their standards enough to let a couple of New Zealanders attend and did us the honour of actually mentioning that there were "colonials" attending! Others at the reception included Rupert Sheldrake and his wife Jill and a number of Fez's on-line community - Kay and Jenny Barnard who run the wonderful Fez Restoration blog, David Amster (House in fez.com), Helen Ranger (Fes Riads.com).
Also enjoying the party were photographer Lynn Evans Davidson (pictured above left with photographer Suzanna Clarke from The View From Fez) and the oldest British resident in Fez, Miss Kathy Dykes. Miss Dykes has been a Fez identity for some 50 years and we will tell you more about her in the coming couple of weeks. She was photographed (below) with the youngest British subject resident in Fez, Sami Al Houari.
It was a splendid evening. As Steven Firstbrook pointed out the Batha Hotel, where the event took place, had been the British Consulate back before Moroccan Independence. He also brought the original British register recording the first British births deaths and marriages in Fez.
The Music Continues.
After wrenching ourselves away from all that British hospitality, we headed under threatening clouds to the Bab Makina for what promised to be the crowd pleaser for the locals. Unlike many of the other high-brow events at the Fez Sacred Music Festival, the concert was aimed at giving the locals a great Thursday night out.
Lotfi Bouchnak may be a great singer, composer and lute player, but he is above all a showman. Born in Tunis, Lotfi has a great grasp of the scholarly Arabic musical traditions, but, as his concert showed he knows how to pump out the pop as well. The crowd loved it until he changed tack and mimed to a recording of one of his earlier hits. Still, apart from that little awkwardness, he was an enjoyable performer who at times managed to even still a crowd happily chatting on their mobile phones.
Enrico Macias on the other hand seems to have had a run in with the sound engineers and for all his great press and great work as a peace Ambassador for the UN, couldn't control the booming bass that seemed more threatening than the thunder rolling around the sky above Fez. Too much bass in the Bab Makina is not a pretty sound. But if you like loud and lots of doof-doof-doof... then Enrico was the man for you. We left for a glass of mint tea in a quieter location.
Photo credit: Suzanna Clarke. Photo of Ms Clarke & Lynn Evans Davidson by Samir.
Tags: Morocco Fes, Maghreb news
2 comments:
Loved this glimpse of life over there ... you set off the old yearning to travel and see interesting things again ...
I'll spend some days putting it all back in the box but Fez is near the top of the list of places I'd like to visit :)
We would love to meet you. One day, inshallah.
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