(noticia) Get festive in Fes

MOROCCO
Helen Ranger
Posted Tue, 22 Mar 2005

It must have been about five years ago that I came across an article in a British magazine on the Fez Festival of World Sacred Music. From that very moment, I was hooked. I knew I had to get there and experience it for myself. I’ve now attended the festival for the last three years; I simply can’t keep away, to the extent that last year I rented out my Rondebosch home and moved to Fez.

There are other aspects to Fez that brought me here, of course, but the festival remains one of the most important. Last year I had press accreditation, and this year I’m translating the programme and advertising material from French into English.

Last year the festival celebrated its 10th birthday, inviting back many previous artistes including Miriam Makeba and Youssou N’Dour. Now it’s back on the road of discovery and has a wonderful array of people lined up for this coming June.

The festival started out as a showcase of sacred music from the three great Abrahamic faiths, Christianity, Islam and Judaism. Over the last few festivals, music from other belief systems has been represented too: Buddhist, Hindu and shamanic faiths such as Native American.

This year there’s everything from Renaissance Christian music, Pakistani Qawwali teamed with Flamenco, Ravi Shankar and his daughter Anoushka, as well as Indian dance, Japanese traditional music and dance, a whole day dedicated to music from Central Asian countries such as Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, traditional shaman music from Colombia, local artistes including a women’s group from the Rif mountains, and Gospel from the US.

(leer +) [vía iafrica.com]