Fes Festival 2017 - Full Programme

The 23rd Fes Festival of World Sacred Music takes place between the 12th and 20th of May. This year's theme is Water and the Sacred

We have made from water every living thing. Surah 21, verse 30

Festival Programme

FRIDAY 12 MAY - Bab al Makina - Tales of Water

The opening night creation on the theme of water will be a look at water from both an ecological and spiritual perspective.

It is from sources that were built the great founding cities like Fez that will be the starting point of the show. The fountain gives purifying water from the spring.

Each fountain in Fes will be the beginning of a story and a different fable that will take us across oceans, rivers, mountain springs. Between references to the Bible, the Koran and Sufism, the great founding myths will help us to understand the importance of respect for water and nature for the future of the earth.

The ocean and the rivers will be evoked in Amerindian traditions, the Caribbean and South America as well as in the origin of Fez as a refined system of irrigation.

"In the Maghreb, the well-known Aïsha Kandisha, a giant djinn who protects lovers, haunts rivers ready to lure the solitary wanderer or lost shepherd to her nocturnal beauty. In Fes, she is hidden within the waters of Oued El Jawahir (River of Pearls) which runs on the outskirts of the medina, under the bridge at Place de la Noriah, just behind Bab al Makina. In this place, inhabitants talk of a mystical dimension, leaving offerings of candles, bread, and a slaughtered black cockerel to appease the djinn" - Artistic Director Alain Weber

Once again the show will employ sophisticated mapping and other scenographic techniques

The staging will be contemporary, more abstract, more organic! There will be a large orchestra and music of different traditions in a spirit of onomatopoeia, aquatic and apocalyptic dreams, water noises, torrents and whale songs.

Orchestra comprised of 12 musicians from Belgium, Palestine, the US and France:
Nicolas Draps: first violin
Daniela Ivanova: second violin
Laurent Tardat: viola
Corentin Dalgarno: cello
Alexandre Furnelle: double base
Alfred Hajjar: ney flute
Tammam Saeed: oud
Jean-Jacques Renaut: brass and classical percussion
Tareq Rantisi: percussion
Bachir Rouimi: percussion

From Brazil:
Marlui Miranda: voice, percussion
Caito Marcondes: percussion

From China:
Wu Opera from Zhejiang
Lingling Yu: pipa lute

From Egypt:
Mohamed Mourad Migally: voice and rabab fiddle
Bahaa Mohamed Mourad Migally: darbouka drum
Mobarak Youssef: voice
Aboubakr Mohammed Mourad Migally: daf drum
Mohamed Moustafa Bikhit Dahy: magician
Abdelrahman Hany Mohamed Morad: tanoura dance
Salame Mahmoud Mohamed Abdelrehim: tanoura dance
El Naggar Mohamed Morad Megally: daf drum
El Hamy Mohamed Mourad Megally: voice and rabab fiddle
Ramadan Hassane Youssef Aly: voice and rabab fiddle

From Spain:
Whistlers from the island of Gomera with Eugenio Darias-Darias

From Cameroon and France:
Loïs Zongo Akutuk: water percussion

From Greece:
Christina Koza: voice
Vangelis Pachalidis: santour

From India:
Milind Tulankar: jal tarang percussion
Ojas Adhivi: tabla
Suva Devi Kalbelya: dance

From Iran (Persian Gulf):
Saeed Shanbehzadeh: neyanban (bagpipe), neydjofti (flute), dammam drum
Naghib Shanbehzadeh: tombak drum, zarbetempo (percussion)

From Kuwait:
Salman El Ammari and Al Maas Ensemble: songs of the pearlfishers

From Morocco:
Ulysse (voice) with Shemsy: Chinese mast
Whistlers from the High Atlas
Mehdi Nassouli: guembri and voice

From the Arab world: Comedians

Direction and conception: Alain Weber,
Creation lights: Christophe Olivier, assisted by Gaël Boucault
Spectacular (Image Mapping): Image Lighters
Direction, composition and arrangement for orchestra: Ramzi Aburedwan

SATURDAY 13 MAY  

Forum: 09h00-14h10 – Karaouine Library, Seffarine Square
Theme: Water and the Sacred.

16h30 ‒ Jnan Sbil Garden €20
Marc Vella – The Nomadic Pianist ‒ France

To show the beauty of mankind in the silence of the world, convinced that humanity cannot grow unless it falls in loves with itself.
～ Marc Vella

Marc Vella is one of those people who excels in music, poetry and travelling. At the age of 30 he and his grand piano covered some 250 000km through almost 40 countries, from the Malagasy bush to sub-Saharan villages, the Kosovo countryside to the lively suburbs of India, from the nightclubs of Beirut to Santiago de Cuba.
Vella started learning the piano at the age of four and studied it academically until adulthood. He won several prizes, proving his virtuosity, acquired a grand piano at the age of 24 and took off with it as fast as he could to play his music everywhere – except in the places you’d expect.
With sculptor Jean-Jacques Lamenthe, he devised variacordes: they are ergonomic, light and uncluttered and allow a playfulness with mallets and chopsticks. They give the piano a totally new orchestral dimension.
Motivated by a desire for the other, Vella’s music allows him to resonate with the planet. For example, he conceived the Emergence Concerts that invite to the keyboard people who have never played the piano before. This new relationship explodes into a contagious joy that captures the audience.
In the same spirit, he devised the Caravan of Love that formed part of the UNESCO International Decade for a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence. On the road, he often takes with him ‘a group of friends who want to meet others and themselves in a spirit of openness and respect for the people, cultures and places they visit in order to marvel at the miracles of nature and of each human being.’

Website: https://www.marcvella.com
Documentary (in French): https://youtu.be/zo_rpLub6yg

HOMAGE TO CHINA
The festival honours this ancient culture of remarkable richness

19h00 ‒ Riad Dar Bensouda €15
Lingling YU – Pipa lute ‒ China

The bold strings rattled like splatters of sudden rain,
The fine strings hummed like lovers' whispers.
Chattering and pattering, pattering and chattering,
As pearls, large and small, on a jade plate fall.
～ Bai Jyui, Song of the Pipa

Destined to be a child prodigy, Lingling YU was born in the bay of Hangzhou in south eastern China. Showing a marked disposition for music, an ehru or violin and a pipa or lute were given to her at the age of 8. The documentary series Chun Lei (Little Musical Geniuses) was not wrong in making her one of its heroines.
YU’s formal apprenticeship ended when she won first prize in the national competition for traditional music; she was then 25 years old.
Tours followed, and eventually the artist decided to move to Switzerland to explore the links between western and eastern music. Composers and conductors were impressed by her profile, enthusiasm and unusual curiosity and thus she began her international career.
Learning from master pipa players, including the living treasure Dehai LIU, her range of knowledge increased. Such solid foundations allows her to flow smoothly from one style to another. Her interpretation is underscored by exceptional technical mastery and is powerful, precise, warm and creative, characterised by clarity and finesse.
The tremolos YU achieves by rolling all five fingers over the strings, her pizzicatos, the play of harmonies and other tones all combine to create vibrant descriptions of various scenes. The repertoire of the pipa lies somewhere between ‘military music’ which dynamically describes legendary battles, and ‘literary music’ inspired by poetry, landscape and historical dramas.
This alliance between passion and serenity evokes the two complementary aspects of Chinese philosophy that can be found throughout life and the universe: Yin and Yang.

Website: http://www.linglingyu.org
Interview (in French and English): https://youtu.be/ LYXCf8UUfOE

21h00 ‒ Bab al Makina €50 (A) €25 (B)
WU Opera OF ZHEJIANG ‒ Legends of Water – China
From the origins of Chinese opera -  in partnership with the Ministry of Culture of the People’s Republic of China with the participation of the Wu Opera of Zhejiang
The ancestry of the well-known Peking Opera lies with the Wu Opera, originally from Zhejiang. Telling of everyday life, it charms and captivates in this mountainous region of the south-east. The brightly coloured costumes, powerful voices and acrobatic performances of wandering artists all contribute to the happiness of the peasants. A local saying goes ‘when I hear the sound of its gongs and drums, my legs start to dance!’.
At every event, be it a birth, an anniversary or a prayer, the villagers club together to invite the best Wu Opera troupe. The festivities last for several days and feature rituals, incense and candles. The opera itself is an offering to the gods. Here, exclamations of joy combine with the cymbals and drums in a theatrical setting full of life and colour. When the troupe arrives in the village, everything stops!
The Wu Opera is more than 400 years old and takes its name from the old city of Wuzhou (now Jinhua). Some of the dances go back to ceremonies from the Shang and Zhou dynasties of more than 3000 years ago. The Zhejiang region is found along the flourishing trade routes for salt, silk, lacquerwork and porcelain. This trade benefitted the local troupes who were committed to offering more and more elaborate works while remaining accessible to the villagers. Wu encompasses the largest repertoire of songs from traditional operas and mobilises the qualities required for martial arts.
The troupe invited to Bab al Makina was founded in 1956 and has actively participated in historical research into Wu Opera. It has collected more than a thousand works and re-established associated crafts such as masks, costumes and make-up. Directed by Chen Mailan, Wu Opera has won honours on many occasions, notably winning the prize for non-tangible cultural heritage.
This programme draws on the rich imagery of Chinese mythology which itself is strongly inspired by the theme of water. In the watery world of rivers and seas, genies, serpents, dragons and even the Monkey King himself, do battle.

22h00 ‒ Boujloud Cinema free of charge
Bel Leil Al Zaman – The Nile Café – Egypt
Tribute to the Baladi culture of the Nile
In collaboration with the French Institute in Fes

The Boujloud Cinema with its 1950s charm has been converted into a small village café for festive events for children and their parents.
Here we are at Abou Djoud, on the banks of the Nile near Luxor, our eyes and ears wide open for the traditions of Upper Egypt. Tea, shisha, garlands, all a familiar scene on saint’s days … and look! Here are the Musicians of the Nile!
With their invigorating spontaneity, the Saïdi musicians ensure a lively and jovial traditional world and are the timeless representatives of the mythical river. They are inheritors of the oral tradition, experts in the rababah, the fiddle made with horsehair, coconut and fish skin from the Nile, they tell the stories. They know how to tell the tale, with a flurry of trills, of the marvels of a star-studded night or more generally, of daily life through simple poetry rich in innuendo: one goes to the ‘market of love’, the train symbolises distance, and sugar cane, sweetness.
For the Festival, Mohamed Mourad, patriarch of the Musicians of the Nile used to touring the world, presents some of the youngest members of his family.
Two teenagers from Abou Djoud perform the tanoura dance originally from the Mevlevi (or Mawlawiya in Arabic) Sufi order, from which come the whirling dervishes of Konya and Aleppo. During his ecstatic turning, a truly cosmic incantation, the dancer removes multi-coloured layers of clothing like the four seasons. His right arm is held up to the sky and the left stretched down to the ground symbolising the meeting of the elements.
We will also watch the traditional baton dance (Raks Al-Tahtib) and some performances by the magician and illusionist Mohammed Mustafa Bakhit.

23h00 – Dar Tazi free of charge
SUFI NIGHT - Ouazzania Brotherhood: Mourad el Hachimi – Fes

SUNDAY 14 MAY

Forum: 09h00-13h20 – Karaouine Library, Seffarine Square

16h30 ‒ Jnan Sbil Garden €20
Marlui Miranda – The Soul of the Amazon Forests ‒ Brazil

In the Brazilian language Kamayurá, the word Ihu means sound … all that penetrates our soul through our hearing, including the voices of spirits and of the magic entities of the forest.
～ Marlui Miranda, on her album of the same name

As this festival is paying tribute to the aquatic world, we are welcoming a little of the richness of the Amerindian continent. Marlui Miranda is of indigenous origin and is a symbol of this deep and harmonious world that is still linked to the origins of Time, and not assailed by the threat of ‘our world’.
Marlui Miranda has dedicated her life to the musical traditions of the Amazon, to the communities that formed them, and to creation. She works in different ways – as researcher, activist, composer, singer and musician but in reality, all become one. She brings to the world voices of the tropical forest, revealing the cultures, visions and initiations that nourish it.
Her creative projects weave organic sounds collected on the innumerable paths of Brazil and her voyage along them, and are celebrations of beauty as well as calls for peaceful resistance. Her voice and her flutes are an expression of a sublimated and yet living, mutant nature.
This great performer has shared the stage and recorded with many artists who have come to admire her: Egberto Gismonti, Gilberto Gil, Nana Vasconcellos, Rodolfe Stroeter, Jack DeJohnette and John Surman. In her treasure chest that she likes to keep open, is music from the people of Surui, Wayana, Apalai, Katxuyana, Tiriyo and Palikur, originally the federal states of Amapa and Tuyuka and the largest, Amazonas.
Marlui Miranda never ceases to inspire with her repertoire plumbing the depths of rivers and following the trace of springs.

Interview (in Portuguese): https://youtu.be/jZ_3x4Y5Nv4

Dar Batha – 18h30
FILM SCREENING: CARAVAN OF LOVE IN ETHIOPIA by Marc Vella and Hubert Lagente
In the presence of Marc Vella
France – 2016 – 60min – in French – Produced by Empyrées
In partnership with the French Institute in Fes

They didn’t know it was impossible, so they did it.～Mark Twain

For Marc Vella, humanity’s greatest heritage is not architectural or material: it exists in the heart of mankind. The artist has travelled to some twenty countries with his piano, from the Middle East to the former Yugoslavia, in India and in Africa, to ‘make people fall in love with themselves’.
Inspired by extreme curiosity of the Other – that is, others with their unique cultures and faces, Vella’s ambition is ‘to approach the human, to kneel before this miracle and, nourished by this encounter, to follow the path. Inevitably.’
Following on from the concert presented the day before, Marc Vella shares this film shot during a journey across Ethiopia. He tells of his wanderings and his encounters and evokes those who work towards living better together.

Dar Adiyel – 18h30 €15
INOURAZ – Berber song, poetry and dance from the Souss – Morocco
The Inouraz Ensemble (meaning ‘hope’ in Tamazight) was established ten years ago on the plains of the Souss, this land in the south where Amazigh and African cultures converge. The five artists harmoniously meld Berber melodies with sub-Saharan rhythms, conjuring up the freedom of jazz.
They make the art of rwayes contemporary, an art form comparable to that of the troubadours or minstrels of medieval Europe, or that of the Mandinka griots of that continues to this day. Amarg sung poetry covers a kaleidoscope of subjects, often improvised by the performer, depending on the news of the day and the inspiration of the moment. It is a question of love, morality, social comment, the everyday, compliments and sometimes the poets engage in real jousting.
Attached to its land yet open to the world, Inouraz is proud to use local instruments: the r’bab fiddle, lotar lute and the guembri, and for percussion the naqous, bendir and tamtam. From its travelling, it has borrowed the Iranian daf drum, an African calabash and an Indian tabla. ‘Hope’ – this is the impulse towards the world along a musical path …

21h00 ‒ Bab al Makina €50 (A) €25 (B)
Songhai – from Andalusian gypsy to Mandinka traditions ‒ Spain, Mali and UK

Toumani Diabaté

Once again we welcome the legendary collaboration between kora-player Toumani Diabaté and the Carmona musicians, representing a ‘new flamenco’.

Toumani Diabaté, José Miguel Carmona, Juan Carmona and Javier Colina revive the spirit of Songhaï, a splendid musical collaboration that brings together the energy of flamenco and the dexterity of Mandinka music.
It was 30 years ago in London that the celebrated flamenco group Ketama met one of the geniuses of the kora lute/harp, Malian Toumani Diabaté. Thanks to the enthusiasm of producer Lucy Duran, they were joined by bassist Danny Thompson, a former member of the well-known English folk group Pentangle, and the improvised jam was recorded. Englishman Joe Boyd produced two amazing versions of Songhaï in 1988 and then in 1994.
Born on the banks of the River Niger, Toumani Diabaté personifies the 71st generation of a family of griots and kora players. He gained his reputation at the beginning of the 1980s along with the diva Kandia Kouyaté. Since then he has toured all over the world several times and is well known for his rich and modern interpretations.
The name Songhaï refers to the ancient Mandinka empire, its people and its language. Today it is reborn in a sumptuous fashion with complex, energetic rhythms and the soaring musical flights of Andalusia, a dry land not dissimilar to the Malian desert.

Excerpt: https://youtu.be/RoRIHsYP-rY

21h00 ‒ Boujloud Square free of charge
SAID GUISSI / ASMAE LAMNAWAR

22h00 ‒ Boujloud Cinema
Bel Leil Al Zaman – The Nile Café – Egypt
Tribute to the Baladi culture of the Nile
In collaboration with the French Institute in Fes

The Boujloud Cinema with its 1950s charm has been converted into a small village café for festive events for children and their parents.

23h00 – Dar Tazi free of charge
SUFI NIGHT - Tijaniyya brotherhood - al anouar zaouia idrissia – Moulay Idriss Zerhoune

MONDAY 15 MAY

Forum: 09h00-13h45 – Karaouine Library, Seffarine Square

16h30 – Jnan Sbil Garden €20
Salman El Ammari and Al MAAS ENSEMBLE – The Art of the Sea – Kuwait

A smooth sea never made a skilled sailor. ～ African proverb

The litters of the Máliki camels that morn in the broad
watercourse of Wadi Dad were like great schooners
from Adauli, or the vessels of Ibn-i Yámin
their mariners steer now tack by tack, now straight forward;
their prows cleave the streaks of the rippling water
just as a boy playing will scoop the sand into parcels.
~Tarafa, Mu’allaqat (Hanging Poems), translated by Arberry

The rich repertoire of the pearlfishers is found from Kuwait to Oman. In these countries of the Gulf, it is called fann al-bahar, the art of the sea, or aghani al ghaws, diving songs, or even nahma.
In olden days, the voyage of the fishermen would last four months. The nahham (singer) went along too to keep their spirits up. He astonished them with his melismatic songs about marine exploits, the dangers they faced at sea, and nostalgic songs of their homeland and dear ones. When they set out to sea (dacha) and when they returned to land (gofal), there were many families on the quay. Then another part of the repertoire came to life, using musical instruments, clapping and dance.
This ‘art of the sea’ is without doubt very old. We know that the Sumerians prized the pearls of the region. This genre that ‘only resembles itself’ as researcher Simon Jardy described it in 1970, borrows from the Arabised cultures of African and Indo-Iranian origin. Its poetic strength and the structure of the cycles recall Iraqi maqâm and the wasla of Aleppo. The polyphonic aspect and exhalations that punctuate it, related to gestures of some effort, go back to Sufi dhikr.
Since the collapse of the fishing economy, which coincided with the appearance of Japanese cultured pearls, and the discovery of oil reserves, these songs are now performed by professional musicians.
Salman Al Ammari is a singer and oud player specialising in fann el bahar. A knowledgeable man, his aim is to preserve this musical heritage in Kuwait and the Gulf states. In addition to his concerts, he presents a number of radio programmes in the spirit of passing on this culture to younger generations.

NIGHT IN THE MEDINA I
A celebration of water and nature: flowing rivers

18h00 ‒ Boujloud Square free of charge
ARESTES E S’URTZU PRETISTU – Ancient rites of a Sardinian village

19h00 – Dar Adiyel €15
The Happy Marriage by Tahar Ben Jelloun – Musical reading – Morocco
Texts selected by Nadine Eghels and Tahar Ben Jelloun, read by Nicolas Pignon, in French
With music by Driss Al-Maloumi and his Ensemble. In the presence of the author

In Islam, when a man sets off on a journey, he is permitted to marry for the duration of his trip. This is called a ‘happy marriage’. So it was in these circumstances that Amir, a prosperous merchant from Fes, temporarily married Nabou, a Peul from Dakar, the city where he had just stocked up his merchandise. And there Amir fell in love with Nabou and suggested he take her to Fes. She accepted, became his second wife and gave birth to twins. One was white and one was black, and the latter one had to confront racism and jealousy on a daily basis.
Recipient of many prizes and awards, the French-speaking writer and poet from Fes, Tahar Ben Jelloun, is best known for his 1985 novel The Sand Child. With A Happy Marriage, published in 2016, he tells a family saga spanning three generations, based on the labyrinth of stories that is the Fes Medina. Touching as well as sociopolitical, the novel is a tale that praises courage and exhorts tolerance.
The actor Nicolas Pignon, well known as the ‘great reader’ for his contributions to the Association Textes and; Voix, joins Driss el-Maloumi, composer and acclaimed master of the oud originally from Agadir.

20h30 – NOTE VENUE CHANGE - not at Prefecture Hall, but at Jnan Sbil Gardens €15
Eric Bibb – Origin of the Blues – United States
Eric Bibb: voice and guitar
Michael Browne: guitar, violin and banjo

Let it rain, let it pour,
Let it rain a whole lot more,
‘Cause I got them deep river blues.
Let the rain drive right on,
Let the waves sweep along,
‘Cause I got them deep river blues.
～ Deep River Blues (Traditional song)

Eric Bibb

Eric Bibb’s story begins in an atypical family in Queens where music ruled the roost. His father, Leon Bibb, was a senior figure on the New York folk scene in the 1960s; his godfather was the actor, singer and activist Paul Robeson, and his uncle the composer and jazz pianist John Lewis, founder of the Modern Jazz Quartet.
The family home was a centre of artistic life where you might find Bob Dylan, Gary Davis, Judy Collins or Odetta Holmes. These encounters fired the imagination and the talent of the boy who turned naturally to the guitar. Bob Dylan gave him this advice in the year he turned 11: ‘play simply and forget about too much sophistication’.
In Paris seven years later, meeting guitarist Mickey Baker cemented his interest in blues guitar. Eric joined up with the Swede and threw himself into the work and composition. At the same time he went on a world tour and became insatiably curious, particularly about sub-Saharan music. Once his 1994 album Spirit & The Blues was released, he became a star.
Bibb has played with Taj Mahal, Pops and Mavis Staples, Charle Musselwhite, Guy Davis, Hubert Sumlin, Rory Block, Bonnie Raitt, Mamadou Diabaté, Toumani Diabaté, Staffan Astner, the Campbell Brothers, Dirk Powell, Cedric Watson, Larry Crockett, Jerry Douglas and Habib Koité.
Today, Bibb lives in London where he continues to explore the roots of blues in the famous Delta blues of Mississippi and the cotton plantations of the end of the 19th century.

Website: http://www.ericbibb.com
Excerpt: https://youtu.be/isfi8u7cLSQ

21h00 ‒ Boujloud Square free of charge
NIZAR IDIL

22h00 – Sidi Mohamed Ben Youssef Cultural Complex €15
Híbridos – A transmedia project on the sacred world of Brazil: from Amazonia to Afro-Brazilian rituals – France/Brazil. Presented and produced by Vincent Moon and Priscilla Telmon

If every step you take is a Prayer, then you will always be walking in a Sacred Manner～ Charmaine White Face

Wherever he goes, Vincent Moon tirelessly films music and those who make it. His encounters, from the valleys of the Caucausus to the bays of Asia form the tiny pearls of the necklace of life holding emotion and trance.
Explorer, producer and writer, the gentle Priscilla Telmon is an intrepid traveller, shamanic healer and poet of love. Her productions are infused with a sincere humanism.
For the last five years, Moon and Telmon have together celebrated ‘the sacred’ and its infinite song. As accomplished filmmakers, their mobile studio is an extension of the eye and the heart where the depths of world ritual beat.
In real time, with live sound, a unique spectacle in a single shot! For three years, Moon and Telmon have surveyed Brazil to tell of its mysteries and sacred ceremonies as part of the Híbridos project.
Here we discover Brazilian rituals and religions allied to water, that take us into the presence of the gods of the sea and the waters: Iemanja, the mother goddess and queen of the aquatic world; Oxum, orisha of rivers and goddess of beauty, a courier to the spiritual world; magnificent scenery from wild waterfalls to river mouths; from baptisms to purification rituals.
This is a musical and poetic exploration of film, the fruit of ethnographic and spiritual research … an audiovisual performance that is constantly evolving, the ‘here and now’ according to place and the muses! It is a unique experiment combining live montage and musical improvisation.
At the whim of this immersive experiment, Priscilla Telmon and Vincent Moon trace the contours of a space both sacred and profane.

Website: http://www.hibridos.cc

22h00 – Dar Adiyel
Water’s Fiancée by Tahar Ben Jelloun – Musical reading – Morocco
Texts selected by Nadine Eghels and Tahar Benjelloun, read by Nicolas Pignon, in French
With music by Driss Al-Maloumi and his Ensemble. In the presence of the author

Here, water is more precious than blood ～Tahar Ben Jelloun, Water’s Fiancée

This second reading takes place in present-day Morocco. It begins in a small village in the High Atlas where water is a resource of immeasurable wealth. The peasants are fighting the owner who wants to divert this vital element to his profit. This is the story of a revolt that ends in failure. The dispossessed survivors are plunged into misery and have no choice but to hightail it to France where they become immigrant workers who have left but their own shadows on their native land.
Other extracts from the works of Tahar Ben Jelloun follow. Water is feminine, woman is of water, a giant siren, hammam steam, memories of childhood and sensuality, streams and seascapes …

22h00 ‒ Boujloud Cinema
Bel Leil Al Zaman – The Nile Café – Egypt
Tribute to the Baladi culture of the Nile
In collaboration with the French Institute in Fes

The Boujloud Cinema with its 1950s charm has been converted into a small village café for festive events for children and their parents.
Here we are at Abou Djoud, on the banks of the Nile near Luxor, our eyes and ears wide open for the traditions of Upper Egypt. Tea, shisha, garlands, all a familiar scene on saint’s days … and here are the Musicians of the Nile!

23h00 – Dar Tazi free of charge
SUFI NIGHT Hassania Brotherhood – Cheikh Ma el Ainin and Fatima Charii - Guelmime

TUESDAY 16 MAY

Dar Batha – 10h00
Workshops with Marc Vella There’s no such thing as a wrong note ‒ France
Registration at the Foundation for a limited number of places. In collaboration with the French Institute in Fes

‘What is the point of life if it regularly gives us dissonance, illness, accidents, death, treason and breakups? We are completely destitute when harmony sometimes breaks. What if the purpose of life were just there – in these wrong notes! How can we change rancour and guilt, anger and sadness into joy? How can we recover a taste for love, a taste for being?

This workshop is aimed at people who have never learned music to really play, and for those who have had musical training, it offers great freedom of expression. Improvising on the piano means you will discover that there are no wrong notes. Your whole being down to your very cells will receive this message of life, joyful and healing. It will vibrate with your vibration – the shortest way to tune in to the self and harmonise with life.’‒ Marc Vella

Dar Batha – 14h00
FILM SCREENING: OF GODS AND MEN by Xavier Beauvois
France – 2010 – 120 min – in French and Arabic
With Lambert Wilson, Michael Lonsdale, Olivier Rabourdin, Philippe Laudenbach and others
In the presence of Michael Lonsdale
In partnership with the French Institute in Fes
In 2010, Xavier Beauvois made an admirable film about the abduction and assassination of seven Cistercian monks in March 1996 in Algeria.
During the conflict between the Algerian state and Islamist guerrillas, seven French monks living in the Tibéhirine monastery in the Atlas Mountains were abducted. Two months later, after fruitless negociations with the French, the GIA (Armed Islamist Group) announced their assassination. Their heads were found on 30 May 1996, but not their bodies. During the long enquiry that followed, the veracity of the official version was questioned and an hypothesis of involvement of the Algerian army was put forward.
The film was awarded the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival, particularly because it showcased the point of view of the Cistercian order that includes silence and contemplation and also working the land, communion through song, aid for the poor, care for sick and brotherhood between men. It was this spiritual aspect that Xavier Beauvois wanted to highlight: this Pascalian sentiment of the finiteness of man, and of the opening up to others that it implies.
Trailer: https://youtu.be/B8WBJ3X4dhE

16h30 – Jnan Sbil Garden €20
Stelios Petrakis Quartet – The Art of Cretan Lyra – Greece

Places of peace, islands of goodwill,
Where, transported by sweet dreams,
I abandon myself to the thoughts of my heart ～ Chateaubriand, The Sea

While Crete was influenced by the Turks after its conquest by the Ottoman Empire in 1669 and was then linked successively to Egypt in 1822 and Greece in 1913, its music has retained originality that is envied elsewhere. It is characterised by the prominent use of the lyra, a three-stringed fiddle, accompanied by a laouto or Cretan lute.
Suffused with knowledge that seems to go back to the Minoan period when Cretan civilisation radiated across the whole region, the music of Stelios Petrakis, an instrumentalist and lute player, highlights the different genres developed along the coasts of the eastern Mediterranean. However, the introspective character of the oriental or Ottoman modes are here replaced with an enchanting clarity. The music is driven by the spirit of the dance and supported by depth of voices and subtle intermingling of strings.

‘With this quartet made up of exceptionally talented young musicians and open to the world, my ambition is to reunite and to present in a lively and animated manner my own ‘Cretan’ compositions and the pieces of our traditional music that I admire and that move me … The movement and expressiveness that are found at festivals, the enthusiasm shared among friends in the villages – this is what we want to share!’ – Stelios Petrakis

The joyous beauty of Cretan music sparkles from this little lyra. The sounds are both delicate and lively, pulling us into the whirl of an ancient dance.

Website: http://www.steliospetrakis.com
Excerpt: http://www.molpe-music.com/fr/spectacles/stelios-petrakis-cretan-quartet/#videos

NIGHT IN THE MEDINA II
A celebration of water and nature: island worlds

19h00 ‒ Dar Adiyel €15
Taziri – An encounter on Mediterranean shores – France/Morocco Titi Robin, bouzouki, guitar, oud. Mehdi Nassouli, guembri, voice, percussion

Taziri 

Taziri is Mediterranean blues, providing a musical bridge between the northern and southern shores of our common sea. Taziri revives the roots that bind us. In the divisions that would divide us, Taziri is basically rebellious. Meaning ‘moonlight’ in Berber, Taziri is there to light up our nights ～ Titi Robin

North Africa, and Morocco in particular, are one of the main sources of north American music, and more widely of popular western music, through the blues! But it is also an important part of European cultural history and of the heritage of Andalusia that shapes our lives and destinies through our sweat and blood.
Taziri is a collaboration dear to the heart of Titi Robin, the inspired creator who recognises himself as from everywhere and nowhere, steeped in gypsy and oriental culture and anchored in the mother of all seas: the Mediterranean.
From one collaboration to the next, the understanding that unites him with the charismatic young Gnawa musician Mehdi Nassouli is growing. After recording the Moroccan album Likaat and sharing the stage for the show Les Rives, they have developed a wide range of songs and instrumental pieces. Composed for the beautiful voice of this young man from Agadir supported by the brilliant groove of his guembri, Titi effortlessly blends in the incisive phrases of his bouzouki and guitar.

Website: http://www.titirobin.com/
Interview (in French) and excerpt: https://youtu.be/MwHPmHdRyrk


20h30 – NOTE VENUE CHANGE - not at Prefecture Hall, but at Jnan Sbil Gardens €15
Lankum – Traveller Ballads – Ireland

Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.
～ William Butler Yeats, The Stolen Kid, in The Collected Poems

From an island where moors, cliffs and the expanse of the sea sharpen a sense of rebellion, voyage and humour, jubilation and musical feasts can only spring up … Ireland is this ancestral land with its prolific history of sailors, navigators and free men whose traditions are a truthful mirror.
Musical brothers Ian and Daragh Lynch are part of ‘experimental psychedelic folk’. After 15 years of festivals, concerts and intensive work with their bandmates Cormac MacDiarmada and Radie Peat, they have now become one of the most compelling Irish music groups. Their fame was firmly established under their former name, Lynched.
Vocal harmonies with arrangements for uilleann pipes, concertina, Russian accordian, fiddle and guitar take us through a folk repertoire full of the alternative spirit of the Traveller tradition, punctuated by Dublin music-hall ditties, traditional dance tunes and by some amazing original material.

Excerpt: https://youtu.be/AwvMNPfTwLE


21h00 ‒ Boujloud Square free of charge
Souad hassan / riad al ‘omr


22h00 – Sidi Mohamed Ben Youssef Cultural Complex €15
Arestes E S’Urtzu Pretistu ‒ Ancient rite of the village of Sorgono – Sardinia, Italy
Life, death and rebirth. With Cultural Association Mandra Olisai

By the light of the moon, a frightening procession of wild animals looms. These creatures are wearing the masks of our ancient beliefs … Incantations and masked dances from a village in Sardinia immediately take us back to the origins of our pastoral soul.
Some Mediterranean islands passionately defend their identity like a temple in which secular traditions, sometimes thousands of years old, are reinvented. High in the Sardinian mountains, a carnival with incredibly ancient roots has developed over the centuries, where pagan rituals confront Christian ones.
In the beginning, human beings had to battle against a hostile nature just to survive. Faced with the animal world, the choice lay between seizing power or being overcome by savagery.
In the San Mauro district of the village of Sorgono, an area rich in Neolithic and Nuragic archaeological remains, the ceremony of Is Arestes e s’Urtzu Pretistu has been played out over and over again for time immemorial. Is Arestes means the agrestic or those coming directly from the wild; s’Urtzu pretistu refers to their sacrifical victim.
This cult event takes places at the end of winter, with the objective of conquering the monster and minimising the risk of drought. It is thought to be dedicated to Maïmone, the local name for Dionysos, large-horned god of wine and drunkness and of a luxuriant spring and rebirth – himself twice-born – with the aim of stimulating rainfall.
While Dionysos is the vital, spontaneous, violent impetus, the eruption of elemental forces, Apollo can be seen as coherence, intelligence, the inner order of the soul reflected in a clear ordering of the external world. Here lie chthonian forces, rising from the depths of the earth, and Uranian spirits, descended from the firmament where the sun reigns …

Excerpt: https://youtu.be/gpb5ELL8j3E

22h00 ‒ Dar Adiyel
Taziri – An encounter on Mediterranean shores – France/Morocco
Titi Robin, bouzouki, guitar, oud Mehdi Nassouli, guembri, voice, percussion
See previous description

22h00 ‒ Boujloud Cinema
Bel Leil Al Zaman – The Nile Café – Egypt
Tribute to the Baladi culture of the Nile
In collaboration with the French Institute in Fes, the Boujloud Cinema with its 1950s charm has been converted into a small village café for festive events for children and their parents.


23h00 – Dar Tazi free of charge
SUFI NIGHT - Harrakiya Brotherhood – Slimani Ensemble – Taza


WEDNESDAY 17 MAY

Jnan Sbil Garden – 16h30
GARDENS EAST AND WEST – Botanical Breath – France
Patrick Scheyder: piano, Michael Lonsdale and Monique Scheyder: readings
In partnership with the French Institute in Fes

A garden brings us together, whatever our culture, beliefs or occupations. It is a place of active peace where all in it can live in dialogue. Every plant and every being is of use to us in the noble sense of the word: indispensable for a rich life.
～ Patrick Scheyder

Pianist Patrick Scheyder listens to and looks at the garden as a place of life and tranquillity. He has started ‘culture in gardens’ with a view to associating the art of gardens with the arts – music, dance, cinema and literature. Are not gardeners artists, working with floral compositions and plant sculptures, creating with living things?
In the show Of Gardens and Men, Patrick Scheyder unites the power of texts and music to the art of gardens. With great ecological sensitivity, he questions nature, biodiversity and the position of man in the plant kingdom. The pleasures of hearing join those of smell and sight. The words and the notes of the piano that fall freely reveal the beauty of plants, trees and flowers.
His repertoire is predominantly romantic, encompassing both Schubert and Chopin as well as Mozart and Bach, with some detours into personal compositions and improvisations. Literary choices include Rousseau, Victor Hugo and George Sand find correspondence with contemporary scientists, philosophers and landscape artists such as Jean-Marie Pelt, Hubert Reeves, Gilles Clément and Pierre Rabhi. All emphasise the essential preservation of nature and the need to respect biodiversity, including George Sand’s weeds.

NIGHT IN THE MEDINA III
A celebration of water and nature: springs in the city

18h30 – Dar Adiyel €15
Mchouga-Maboul – Theatre, tales and storytelling – Morocco/France
Written and performed by Simon Elbaz, in French

Simon Elbaz, with his three-fold background (French-Jewish-Arab) and his four-fold talent (author, comedian, musician and singer), could possibly have been possessed by his character as he worked on bringing his village memories to life.
The action takes place in Morocco around the figure of Mchouga, alias Maboul. He is mad about the country, its best advocate. He speaks French, Hebrew and Arabic as well as the dialects used by the Jewish, Muslim and Christian communities under the French Protectorate. And he is the one who keeps a daily diary of events on the eve of independence.
‘Before setting up his halqa or theatre in the round, in the middle of the village, he passed by the mosque and then the synagogue, but the church? That was too far away for him!’
Dancing, playing the lute and chanting, this beggar-clown leads the spectator between hilarity provoked by scathing Jewish humour and despair before so much blindness. Simon Elbaz juggles with the three languages and offers different points of view with astonishing virtuosity. So this is how a theatrical game can emerge from ancient stories with a refreshing dignity!
Somewhere between the sacred and the profane, this evening of oral tradition is followed by a recital of Matrouz a capella song. Simon Elbaz aims to reconnect this Judeo-Arab heritage with the Jewish, Muslim and Christian cultural crucible that was the spirit of the golden age of Al Andalus.

Website: http://www.matrouz.com/
Excerpt (in French): https://youtu.be/p61ZLRN68wE


21h00 – Boujloud Square free of charge
OUSSAMA ABDEDAYEM / NABIL BOULBOUL

22h00 – NOTE VENUE CHANGE - not at Prefecture Hall, but at Jnan Sbil Gardens €15
Yasmine Hamdan – Pop icon – Lebanon

My heart is as helpless
As the river is
Inaccessible to all
And the waterfall follows its course
From the end of the spring
To the beginning of the sea
～ Maya Sabah, Syrian poet

Yasmine Hamdan is the rebellious princess in an Arab musical, particularly a Lebanese one. Representing a new genre, she engenders a timeless feeling, showing a kind of nomadic aristocracy and an echo of her incessant moving from a young age, from the Gulf of Beirut to Greece and on to France.
Conscious of the heritage of great Arab women singers of long ago, Yasmine is inspired by the artists of the Arab Peninsula to Egypt, from the beginning of the 20th century to the 1970s. Some of these are half-forgotten now and some still shine, including Aisha El Marta, Nagat El Saghira, Asmahan, Shadia and Mounira El Mehdeyya.
Yasmine presents her latest album, Al Jamilat (the beautiful ones) (March 2017/Crammed Discs). This album was made with English producers Luke Smith (Depeche Mode, Lily Allen) and Leo Abrahams (Brian Eno, Carl Barât), as well as with contributions from New York musicians Shahzad Ismaily (a follower of Laurie Anderson, Lou Reed, John Zorn and Marc Ribot) and Steve Shelley (member of the well-known group Sonic Youth).
Contrary to banal pop that rests awkwardly on the American model, Yasmin’s electro-folk style has mysterious elegance and ethereal sensuality where the theatricality is revealed through bewitching guitar riffs.

Website: http://www.yasminehamdan.com/en/
Excerpt: https://youtu.be/hSToVjkI278


22h00 – Sidi Mohamed Ben Youssef Cultural Complex €15
Labyrinths – Cinematographic and musical creation – Morocco/France
Produced by Vincent Moon and Priscilla Telmon
With the Hamadcha Sufi Brotherhood of Fes directed by Abderrahim Amrani Marrakchi

Initiated by filmmakers and ‘explorers of the sacred’ Vincent Moon and Priscilla Telmon, Labyrinths invites us on a musical and poetic excursion into the lanes of the Fes medina. We are accompanied by the local Sufi Brotherhood, the Hamadcha, directed by their moqaddem or leader.
The ceremony and rituals, the captivating charm of the old medina, the devotion that can be felt around the mosques, the gardens and houses hidden behind stone walls and the everyday business … all this will be filmed and then projected live, while the Hamadcha are invited to match their chants and music to the images.
Like the Gnawa or Aïssawa, the Hamadcha are one of the ‘popular’ Sufi brotherhoods, and one of the largest in Morocco. Founded by the saint Sidi Ali Ben Hamdouch in the 17th century, their community has always been known for the originality of their repertoire of praise songs, their complex rhythmic style, their enthralling dances and the efficacy of their healing through trance.
The Hamadcha ritual, like that of the Gnawa, is in effect a place of therapy. This is why they have for some time been considered expert therapists and solicited by families for their knowledge of spiritual medicine.

Fez Hamadcha Sufi Brotherhood

Vincent Moon and Priscilla Telmon hunt down expressions of the sacred, document them and then transmit them. Like passionate muses, they use various media to try to find the best way to show it: installation, cinema, sound and visual creations. Studying one of their films or experiments (all freely available on the internet), is like entering into the very sensation generated by the music. The smooth image becomes a vibration through the details absorbed by the camera; as though they are allowed to live until the very moment of their deliverance.

23h00 ‒ Boujloud Cinema
Bel Leil Al Zaman – The Nile Café – Egypt
Tribute to the Baladi culture of the Nile
In collaboration with the French Institute in Fes

The Boujloud Cinema with its 1950s charm has been converted into a small village café for festive events for children and their parents.
Here we are at Abou Djoud, on the banks of the Nile near Luxor, our eyes and ears wide open for the traditions of Upper Egypt. Tea, shisha, garlands, all a familiar scene on saint’s days … and to be sure, here are the Musicians of the Nile!

23h00 – Dar Tazi free of charge
SUFI NIGHT - Aissawa Brotherhood: Abdellah Yaakoubi, with the participation of the Sakaliya Brotherhood (song)


THURSDAY 18 MAY

16h30 – Jnan Sbil Garden €20
BELOVED GANGES – Harmony of voices – France/India
Created by the musical project Resonance: Samuel Cattiau, voice, and Quentin Dujardin, guitar. With Pelva Naïk, voice and tanpura, and Sanjay Agle, tambour pakhawaj
To walk upon Indian soil and follow the course of the Ganges is to understand the subordination of man to nature. The peregrination of the waters, from the source nestled high in the Himalayas to the greatest delta on the planet, is a constant inspiration. It is said that the first strand of the river flowing from the west is feminine and exuberant, and belongs to none other than Lord Shiva himself. In his hair of ashes, he subdues the impetuous goddess Ganga who threatens to cleave the earth in two.
On the plains and particularly in the sacred city of Benares, an enlightening tradition has prospered: the dhrupad, which first appeared in the Vedic sanctuaries of India. The singers, facing the divinity, give an offering of sound based on the primordial Om and associated mantras. Practised in the court of the Emperor Akbar, this genre gave rise to stylistic schools of lineage such as the Dagarvani.
Pelva Naïk is one of the foremost female practitioners of the art of dhrupad. Having studied under maestro Ustad Zia Fariduddin Dagar, she concentrates constantly on the concord between the note and the poetry. In her quest for subtlety Pelva is accompanied by Sanjay Agle, maestro of the magnificent tambour pakhawaj with its mellow tones.
In 9th century Europe, various sacred repertoires garnered from Oriental modes of music arrived in the courts, abbeys and monasteries. In the 12th century, the art of the Troubadour came to the fore: to find just the right notes for just the right words for love songs or epic poems. During the Ars Nova period of the 14th century, music travelled, masters played it and schools were established.
When Samuel Cattiau found his unusual voice with its high, precise vocal range, he became interested in songs of oral transmission. Leaving the rich oeuvre of ancient music in its place of heritage, he created the Resonance project with guitarist and composer Quentin Dujardin, co-constructor of this unique musical universe. Infused with the spirit of minstrels and troubadors, they explored widely the courtly and sacred themes such as, for example, the antagonism between friendship and love.
When Resonance came into being, Samuel Cattiau discovered and began to examine ancient themes and texts from the Indian tradition. He dreamed of the temples and palaces of India and of this tradition that contains the sound that resonates with the cause and source of all manifestation.
Our four artists will take us sailing along the river, somewhere between mystical beauty and free melodies.
Websites: http://pelvanaik.in/about/ + http://www.resonance-music.fr/

18h00 – Palais Amani €15
CLAIRE ZALAMANSKY – ¡ Ay Petenera! Sephardic song and gypsy memories – France/Spain

The sea
Smiles far-off.
Spume teeth,
Sky lips.
~ Federico García Lorca, Ballad of the Salt Water

Claire Zalamansky brings a decidedly Ottoman feeling to her Judeo-Spanish repertoire, from the time of the three religions in Spain to the Jewish traditions of Salonika and Istanbul.
At the age of 12, she came across Federico García Lorca through Antonio Gadès in Blood Wedding: it was a revelation. Some time later, she began to interpret the Spanish popular songs that had been arranged by Lorca. By chance, she also came across the Judeo-Spanish cancionero, or songbook, and through this Sefarland she began her journey … On the eastern side of the compass, there were yet more discoveries.
Claire Zalamansky combines the eternal story of exile and the mixture of cultures. One is immediately struck by the compatability of her expression and the beauty of her voice. She has a ‘natural’ voice that is part of traditional interpretation: she began at home with a capella performances along the lines of the vigils of yesteryear.
Today, accompanied by well-established, inspired musicians and using a technique between storytelling and song, she interprets the story of Petenera, a flamenco gypsy singer and dancer born near Cadiz. This is a new show based on a journey of intiation.
Website: http://www.claire-zalamansky.fr/
Excerpt: https://youtu.be/9wFsCzt3qQ8


21h00 – Boujloud Square free of charge
ENSEMBLE CYLIA / STATI

21h00 – Bab Al Makina
VICENTE AMIGO – Poeta: concert by a Sailor Ashore – Spain
€50 (A) €25 (B)
Concerto for flamenco guitar and symphony orchestra

With words, one opens doors onto the sea.~ Rafael Alberti, Concerning the Angels, 1929

Cordoban composer Vicente Amigo is renowned as a contemporary maestro of the flamenco guitar.
He studied under El Marengue (Rafael Rodríguez Fernández) and El Tomate (Juan Muñoz Expósito). His career took off when he was only 15: he accompanied Manolo Sanlúcar, and then El Pélé, before embarking on a solo career. He has crossed paths with the renowned singer Camarón de la Isla, with the virtuoso guitarist John McLaughlin, and also with Paco de Lucía, Milton Nascimento and Enrique Morente.
It is said that Amigo can immediately be recognised by his swift and ethereal style as well as by his accessible, popular songs in the spirit of the 19th century Romantics. Flamenco is always there, in the depths of the sound and the traditional compas (rhythms).
Twenty years ago, Amigo realised his dream of bringing together the dance of strings with the grace of words. His dream has developed since then into symphonic form: Poeta, and has its raison d’être in the seminal work of that famous son of Andalusia, Rafael Alberti (1902-1999).
The first collection by this avant-garde poet was entitled Marinero en tierra (A Sailor Ashore). Within its pages lay an overwhelming enjoyment of playing – with images, sounds, rhythms, the ‘élan vital’. Even the inspiration of nostalgia is swallowed by the movement of the sun in summer. A powerful voice arises from the maritime universe of his childhood in Puerto de Santa Maria to celebrate the huge poetic territory spread before him. At the age of 23, he won the national poetry prize and joined the Generation of ’27. Always totally engaged, exile took him from his land.
Vicente Amigo made this collection his companion and composer. And just before his death, Rafael Alberti recognised him thus: ‘Vicente, so young and yet already well rewarded, has injected into his music the pulse and tremors of my verses.’
Poeta is a work that reflects the magnificence of the sea. Here we experience the changing surface, the troubled depths and the irresistable horizon. Alegrías of Cadiz (songs), palmas (clapping) and violins, quejíos (laments) and strings …

Website: http://www.vicenteamigo.com/en/
Musical piece Poeta en el mar (1997): https://youtu.be/F4-Uw3fc3Eo

23h00 – Dar Tazi free of charge
SUFI NIGHT - Hamadcha Brotherhood: Abderrahim Amrani Marrakchi, with the participation of the Chadiliya brotherhood (song)

FRIDAY 19 MAY

16h30 – Jnan Sbil Garden €20
BARBARIC VIOLINS – Epic World-Folk – Bulgaria/Mongolia/France

I love beautiful landscapes: sometimes they have the same effect on my soul as a well-handled bow has on a resounding violin. They create crazy feelings ~ Stendhal, Memories of a Tourist

Barbaric Violins – here’s the promise of lift-off towards soundscapes of breath-taking abundance. We will cross them in a hang-glider, a pirogue or on the back of a donkey – but never in the antiseptic comfort of business class. This is rock ‘n roll – even if we do enjoy a couple of breaks with our feet in the mountain stream.
Barbaric Violins prove to those who are yet to be convinced that our identity has every chance of being enriched when we are in touch with our neighbour. The three musicians play sounds from their own countries (and play around with them), all the while singing universal songs. They are the personification of that law of optimism: ‘the more you know about where you come from, the further you can see’.

The ever popular Epi the Mongolian

Enkhjargal Dandaryaanchig, aka Epi, is Mongolian. He is a master of the horsehead fiddle morin khoor and of overtone chant; he merrily spans four octaves. Fabien Guyot is a French percussionist expert in improvisation and knows all about the rhythms of the African ancestors. Dimitar Gougov the Bulgarian started the project. He plays the gadulka, a fiddle popular in the Balkans that has three melodic strings and 11 resonating strings.
Mischievous – they’re not really violins and not really barbaric. They are reinventing traditional music into a sort of electric road movie in which unpredictable lands pass by, steppes criss-crossed by nomadic tribes with gypsy horses in the undergrowth. Watch out – here they come!
Website: http://www.violonsbarbares.com/
Excerpt: https://youtu.be/e0svQa3l5SA

18h00 – Dar Batha
FILM LE MATROUZ by Simon Elbaz and Annie Brunschwig
In the presence of the authors – In memory of Professor Haïm Zafrani
France – 2010 – 46 min – Language: French/Arabic – Distribution: Les Films de l’Atalante

In partnership with the French Institute in Fes

In Arabic, matrouz means ‘embroidered’. In the oral tradition, the Judeo-Maghrebi heritage that began in the multi-cultural crucible of creative medieval Andalusia is sung in Arabic and Hebrew. How and why can we be sure of the preservation of this culture that shone so brightly on both the northern and southern shores of the Mediterranean?
Simon Elbaz contributes to the evolution of this legacy by pouring French, Latin and Judeo-Spanish into it, interweaving Arabo-Andalusian and oriental musical inspirations and mixing it all into the art of storytelling and theatre. The poet and the man on stage is undoubtedly a promoter of dialogue.
This documentary, shown in the presence of the authors, tells the story of a process both personal and artistic, a journey from tradition to contemporary creation, from a Moroccan village to Paris. This Matrouz is indeed a poetic manifesto for peace!

Website (Simon Elbaz): http://www.matrouz.com/documentaire/index.html
Trailer: https://youtu.be/AH~ScTAF-59s

21h00 – Boujloud Square free of charge
FNAYER / AHOUZAR

21h00 – Bab Al Makina €50 (A) €25 (B)
IZLAN – Songs of Moroccan Women
From the mountains to the plains, from the desert to the sea
Woman appeared as a benevolent goddess as she was made of the elements, she was the elements and all that embellished them in the eyes of men. But it was in spring that as the mountain streams came tumbling down, edged with brown foam and bordered by green tamarisk, a muffled drum of pebbles sounded and she flourished and became as ethereal as an antelope. She became conjoined with the rebirth of Nature.
～ Mohammad Khair-Eddine (Moroccan writer born in Tafraoute)
This show is entitled Izlan, a Berber word meaning the art of verse, and is dedicated to the artistic talents of the traditional woman, the benevolent repository of nature and water.
Whether she is a peasant from the mountains or the valleys, a desert nomad or a professional dancer or singer, the Moroccan woman is attached to her land, her family, her language and to the traditions of an orally-transmitted heritage. She is part of a universality: she gives life, carrying within her the intimacy of the ritual of existence, an intimacy of which men, with their reticence and distance, seem to be unaware.
This show highlights the precious relationship between Berber and Arab women and Nature, from morning to night, like the symbolic reflection of the cycle of life that leads from birth to death. The timbre and register of their voices evoke mountain rocks and desert stones. Their songs take on, in turns, the ochre colour of volcanic earth and the starkness of the High Atlas where the rushing of the desert winds rubs up against the convulsive eddies of the waves.
Among the performers are Chérifa, Raïssa Fatima Tabaamrant and a’yu singers – the sung ‘cry’ of Taounate in the Rif, the Roudaniat dancers of Taroudant in the Anti-Atlas, and Bab al Sahara, the guedra dance group from Guelmim.
Traditional song and dance from the mountains to the desert:
A’yu song, the sung ‘cry’ from Taounate in the Rif
Berber songs from the village of Taguelft in the Middle Atlas
Songs of the Cheikhat of Khenifra, with Chérifa, from the Middle Atlas
Songs and dance by the Roudaniat of Taroudant in the Anti-Atlas
Guedra dance with Bab al Sahara from Guelmim in the Sahara

23h00 – Dar Tazi free of charge
SUFI NIGHT  Naqshbandiyya Brotherhood: Fes

SATURDAY 20 May

16h30 – Jnan Sbil Garden €20
AZIZ SAHMAOUI – Cuban Project – Morocco/Cuba
From the world of African Gnawa to the cult of the Orishas
With Harold Lopez-Nussa, piano

The poet chooses, selects, from the mass of the world, what he wants to preserve, sing, save, and that which agrees with his song. And rhythm is ritual force, as well as a lever of conscience.
~ Edouard Glissant, Poetic Intention

The singer and multi-instrumentalist from Marrakech, Aziz Sahmaoui, has traversed the first few years of this century like a comet with one goal: to reunite the worlds.
It all started seven years ago at the French Kawa bar in the east of Paris. At the back of the room is a tiny stage to host musician friends. Aziz Sahmaoui, one of the founders of the Barbès National Orchestra, was there. With his associate Alioune Wade, he put to the test the melodies that ran around in his head and that stirred his heart. It wasn’t long before other artists heard about it. Amongst them were Hervé Samb, Cheikh Diallo and Adhil Mirghani who joined the group.
There’s a common denominator between Moroccans and Senegalese: the Gnawa rhythms from sub-Saharan Africa and the unsophisticated transe that serves as a foundation for fertile experiment. The Gnawa University is born, quickly immortalised on a first recording applauded by the critics.
Aziz Sahmaoui goes further. Right now he is a conduit from a sacred Africa inhabited by its gods, brought to life by its peoples, who have not only crossed the desert but also seas and oceans from the coast of Mogador (Essaouira) to the Caribbean archipelago. This Africa is transplanted onto an island called Cuba full of surpernatural rhythms.
Two years ago Aziz, Alioune, Adhil Mirghani (percussion) and Amen Viana (guitar) took part in the Havana World Music Festival in Cuba. There they formed a musical friendship with the young piano prodigy, Harold Lopez-Nussa, trumpeter Carlos Sarduy (fellow traveller with Chucho Valdès with whom Aziz had collaborated), and some percussionists.
Enthused with renewed energy, they compose and improvise, recycling the influences of their respective countries and rallying a unifying African groove. The Fes Festival presents the first outline of a project freshly hatched from their imaginations and that of their musical hordes, as talented as it is inspired.
‘Love of the other and the immense joy of sharing and creating transports artists to a spiritual realm where they are renewed every day and daily life is enriched.’
– Aziz Sahmaoui
Websites: http://www.azizsahmaoui.com/ + http://www.haroldlopeznussa.com/

21h00 – Boujloud Square free of charge
CHEB RAYAN

21h00 – Bab Al Makina €60 (A) €30 (B)
MAGIDA EL ROUMI – Lebanon

When I sailed your seas, my queen
I did not look at maps
I did not have a lifeboat or a lifebuoy
But I sailed towards your fire like a Buddha
And I chose my destiny
~ Nizar Qabbani, extract from Femmes

Great Lebanese singer Magida El Roumi is the embodiment of hope, as deeply rooted in her native land as she is in the conscience of her people. Like a cedar tree with spreading branches, she protects places and hearts throughout the world.
As her voice developed until she reached the very pinnacle of stardom in Arab culture, she seemed born to become an ambassador of joy. Her land and her people identify with her voice and her presence as her songs are full of their daily emotions and concerns. For almost forty years, over several generations and more to come, she has been role-model to follow. She has graced stages across the entire world.

Appearing on 20 May 2017 at Bab Al Makina during the Fes Festival of World Sacred Music, the diva will shower Fes with joy and write a page in its history with her generosity and love.
At this performance in a city Magida loves, Fes will sparkle with the splendour, originality and richness of an artistic experience that will be engraved on the memory of all. And such memory will radiate into every part of this prodigious cultural experience in the ancient city with its doors open both to history and to the future.
Magida El Roumi’s trajectory shows unparalleled grandeur as it sows a joy that is harvested throughout the seasons. Like a lighthouse, she guides souls deep in misery towards tranquillity. This is the greeting she brings to the inhabitants of Fes, of Morocco in general and of the entire world – a greeting as beautiful as she is, as smiling as her face, as deep as her culture and as warm as her ardent desire for this encounter.
Honouring the Kingdom of Morocco with her presence, she declares that the Moroccan people will never recoil in the face of difficulty, that they will overcome through their passion and courage. No crisis or distress can put an end to such ambition: from tragedy, great works and creations can emerge. Dream big – as all dreams can come true!
Magida El Roumi promises the people of Fes an unforgettable night as she presents a bouquet of her best songs that the public can sing along to, as well as new works. A truly unique and triumphant appearance at this festival!

23h00 – Dar Tazi free of charge
SUFI NIGHT  Al Hadra Zaylachiya: Jamila Beni’aich - Assilah

Majida Al-Roumi

Translations thanks to Helen Ranger -  Fez Riads

The View From Fez is an official Media Partner of the Fes Festival of World Sacred Music

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