night in the medina 2

A  musical journey of initiation in the heart of the riads of Fez – from 20h00

Dar Mokri – 20h00 et 22h00

Rabbi Haim Louk and Abderahim Souiri

Judeo-Arab Song

Your mouth is surpassed by a canopy of sapphire
It's your nose, much more beautiful than the golden tints of Orphir:
The stars in the heavens, the planets at the nadir.
The mystery at the zenith, fade instantly!
Pity, at the bottom of the hole, he who will destroy himself,
His face is revived by your breath, splendour!

 Isaac Ben Abraham Uziel

Morocco is very proud of having retained its Judeo-Arab heritage, a characteristic of Andalusia which in our tormented world, is symbolic.
Rabbi Haim Louk was born in 1942 in Casablanca, and is one of the major figures of Judeo-Arab music. He learned at the foot of grand master of Moroccan Jewish liturgy, the blind Rabbi David Bouzaglou 'Zal and with the Muslim Abdessadok Chekara, the Andalusian voice of Tetouan. His faith and his rabbinical knowledge were as important as his passion for Sephardic liturgy and his love for religious poetry. Haim Louk knew how to hold both the classical tradition ala of Moroccan Andalus music and the Hebrew repertoire of piyyoutim canticles and the baqashot, praising God, which began as a murmur on the inside and then burst out into spiritual and sensual rapture.
At the crossroads of these Jewish and Arab poetic universes, there is matrouz that subtly mixes Arabic and Hebrew words.
'This embroidery of poetic words of poems from all epochs, down the ages, of all types and on all subjects, this matrouz, is the soul and the very essence of multiculturality. A culture that is plural cannot but embroider its differences and its different elements. Life is embroidery. One embroiders in every sense', as Fr Joseph Chetrit says.
With the musicians led by Abderahim Souiri around him, all of them repositaries of the Fassi tradition of Cordoba, Haim Louk can give free rein to his inspiration that will ensure flawless transmission
 

 

Dar Adiyel 20h00 et 22h00
Cherifa, poet of the Middle Atlas - Morocco

'I open my mouth to implore God, not man who is not my creator,
Pillow, you are my witness: even if I rest my head on you, sleep never comes to my eyes.'
Tamawayt poem

Whether she is a rural woman from the mountains or valleys, a musician, dancer or professional singer like the cheikhâts or the rwayyes of the Souss,  the Moroccan woman is attached to her land, to her language and to the tradition of an oral heritage transmitted from one generation to the next.
In this sense she is part of a universal truth that women carry within themselves: the intimacy of ritual, an intimacy that men continue to ignore.
The Cheikhats are originally from the Beni-Mellal region of the Middle Atlas. They are not just choir-members or dancers; some of them are fully-fledged singers. They continue the ancient poetic tradition adapted over the passage of time.
Cherifa was discovered when she was a young country girl by the great master and singer Rouicha and was part of her singing group for a long time.  Originally from Khenifra, that small ochre town under the mountains, Cherifa can seem, at first, to be austere or even masculine. Her career as a professional singer has given her another way of life, a status different from the usual one of traditional Moroccan women.
Cheikhats have an ambiguous status: they are free, but at the same time are bearers of the words that belong to the community and that reveal the hidden thoughts of every being. In the Tamawayt, the Berber songs of the Middle Atlas, they speak the words of the village poets.
The emotional register alternates between a feeling of rejoicing and one of suffering and spiritual reflection.
At the restrained and secretive start of the performance, her voice shatters the silence, and quickly with the frenzy of the bendirs, becomes the echo of the geography of the mountains, those volcanic lands so characteristic of the Middle Atlas.
 

Batha Museum – 21h00
Nour Ensemble Iran - France

The Nour Ensemble moves between sacred Occidental polyphonies to the declamation of mystical Persian song.
This particularly accomplished musical approach engenders deep serenity from which a true feeling of spiritual pleasure emanates, at the same time reinstating an ancient communion between East and West.
European music from the 9th to 15th centuries (Gregorian plain-song, Spanish cantigas, etc) fell before the intellectual and conceptual revolution that spawned the development of musical writing (written musical notes). Thus the music was closer to traditional oral context still modal in essence.

Whether this music was profane or liturgical, the inspiration for it was, like Persian music, often popular in nature. Indeed, from an historical point of view, it was a time when travellers, merchants and artists from the East and the West, from the Orient and the Occident, perpetually confronted and connected with each other, creating an axis of cultural circulation that was alive and creative.

Traces of these exchanges are also symbolised by the existence of the lute, whose oriental ancestor can be found today in the oud; or the tympanon, psalterion or canon, again ancestors of the santour and qanoun that are still played today.

Later, the ensemble deepened the musical experience between Persia and the West by adding Persian instruments.
In 2000, the Nour Ensemble produced their album Alba. This was the first experience of allying Persian and European vocal music. Alba means 'white', symbolising the interior light of Persian Sufis, or the light that filters through the windows of cathedrals in the West towards the faithful.
White light, the colour of the passage of night towards the dawn, of shadows towards clarity, the colour of purity and of wisdom. White light is also the synthesis of all the colours that are so divergent and contrasting, one against the other.