Rédaction Africa Links 24 with Siham Jadraoui
Published on 2024-03-21 11:44:01
Training program with Berklee, creation of a chair dedicated to Gnaoua culture…
The 25th edition of the Gnaoua and World Music Festival will take on a very special form. With a quarter of a century of longevity, this edition marks the beginning of a new chapter focused on the future and carrying structuring and sustainable projects. The details.
As it celebrates a quarter of a century of existence, the essential Gnaoua and World Music Festival of Essaouira, scheduled from June 27 to 29, will bring many new features this year. “This edition is special because we will celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Gnaoua and World Music Festival of Essaouira. My emotions are great when I think back to the incredible artistic and human epic we have experienced over these 25 years,” said Neila Tazi, director and producer of this festival, during a press briefing dedicated to the presentation of this event. And to announce: “This edition marks the beginning of a new chapter resolutely focused on the future and carrying structuring and sustainable projects”.
Two major projects on a large scale
The festival is initiating two new major projects. The first is the launch of a training program in partnership with one of the most prestigious music institutions in the world, Berklee College of Music, Boston, Massachusetts. This program will take place in Essaouira from June 24 to 28. It will be aimed at Moroccan and foreign musicians wishing to train in contact with the teachers of the world’s largest music institution. As for the second project, it consists of the creation of a chair dedicated to Gnaoua culture in partnership with the University Mohammed VI Polytechnic’s Center for African Studies in Benguerir. The objective is to create a research space to deepen knowledge about Gnaoua culture, its origins, history, and evolution. Thus, the creation of this first university chair dedicated to Gnaoua culture will be carried out in several steps in the coming years. “The first project follows the work undertaken by the Festival for several years: putting Morocco at the heart of global musical excellence and encouraging talent from the continent. While the second joins the series of initiatives carried out by the Festival since its creation to deepen knowledge and transmission of Gnaoui heritage,” explains Mrs. Tazi on this subject.
34 Maâlems Gnaoua and 53 concerts in total
According to the organizers, the Gnaoua and World Music Festival of Essaouira will present 34 Maâlems Gnaoua and 53 concerts in total, including 6 fusion concerts. Among these fusions, the opening concert promises an explosion of rhythms mixing Gnaoua genres, Brazilian Batucada, Spanish Flamenco, and Ivorian Zaouli. It will bring together Maâlem Hassan Boussou (Casablanca) and Maâlem Mly Taieb Dehbi (Marrakech) with the Dumanlé company (Ivory Coast), Nino de Los Reyes (Spain) and Ilê Aiyê (Brazil). Another fusion not to be missed is the one that will bring together Mâalem Hamid El Kasri with the Bokanté group (United States, Canada) founded by guitarist Michael League (Snarky Puppy), multi-nominated at the Grammy Awards.
Several artists from around the world will participate
This pioneering, avant-garde, and committed festival has always ensured to take the audience on a journey through world music, between established artists and rising stars. This year, the audience will have the pleasure of seeing, among others, the multilingual Palestinian rapper Saint Levant (Marwan Abdelhamid by his real name) as well as the powerful duo Aita mon amour, consisting of the Moroccan singer Widad Mjama and the Tunisian musician Khalil Epi, who brilliantly revisits this popular traditional Moroccan genre to project it into the modern era. This year, festival-goers will also be able to listen to one of the most beautiful voices in flamenco, the Spanish singer of Equatorial Guinean origin Buika, acclaimed by the international press for her unique voice. The concert by the legendary American jazz trumpeter Randy Brecker, seven-time Grammy Award winner, will also be one of the highlights of this new vintage.
“Morocco, Spain and Portugal relations” at the heart of the debate
In addition to the concerts, the festival offers the Forum on Human Rights of the Gnaoua and World Music Festival, organized in partnership with the Council of the Moroccan Community Abroad (CCME). Organized for its 11th edition, the forum addresses this year the current theme “Morocco, Spain, Portugal: a story with a future”. “A few years before the historic event of jointly organizing the 2030 World Cup, we will explore the richness and complexity of the relations that unite Morocco, Spain, and Portugal,” explain the organizers. Bringing together about twenty diverse personalities, the Forum will address, over two mornings, subjects related to common history, the place and role of diasporas, mobility, and the impact of the 2030 World Cup on neighboring issues. It should be noted that, in 10 editions, the Forum on Human Rights has welcomed more than 150 prominent personalities (anthropologists, artists, writers, historians, ministers, politicians, philosophers, researchers, diplomats, …) from 25 countries and 4 continents (Africa, America, Asia, and Europe).
Read the original article(French) on Aujourdhui.ma
