Seeking the Sacred in Fes: Part Two
Each time I walk into the medina, the mile-square medieval city that's the heart of Fes, Morocco, I promise myself I won't get lost in its mazelike alleyways. But of course I always do. The Fes Festival of World Sacred Music, on the other hand, is the punctual and well-ordered counterpart to the medina's chaotic and relentless mélange of sights, sounds, and smells, both charming and sometimes not so.
The Batha Museum courtyard, one of the most tranquil concert spaces ever, was the perfect location for my personal festival highlight, a Friday afternoon performance of Southern Indian classical music by vocalist Vasumathi Badrinathan. A deep-voiced, joyously improvising singer in the Carnatic tradition, Badrinathan's songs and single complete raga were accompanied by violin, mridangam (a double-headed barrel drum), and the ancient morchang (or so-called Jew's harp). The following day's Batha show was a much more sober affair consisting of Syrian singer Waed Bouhassoun, who accompanied her dry yet moving (to others, mostly) verses by the Sufi poet Jalal ad-Din Muhammmed Rumi on oud, and Uzbekistan singer Nadir Pirmatova's Uzbekistan songs reminiscent of Chinese folk music.
Lebanese singer Jahida Wahbé also concentrated on songs by Rumi at the tonier Bab Makina Friday night. Without understanding the Arabic lyrics, though, I tired rather quickly of her Streisand-esque emoting. Which made Syrian vocalist Elias Karam's following set all the more exciting. Although his music came from the same tradition of sacred poetry as Wahbé's, his arrangements shifted constantly through the course of each call-and-response tune. Karam would sing a verse with certain instruments at a certain tempo, then the orchestra would reply with a magnificent variation at a slightly brighter tempo. It was over far too soon.
The Dar Tazi courtyard, where different ensembles dug deep into the Sufi tradition every night at eleven, is another wonderful venue and a great place to wind down at the end of the day's three concerts. Sufi acts like Friday night's Chadilia Mchichia (from Tetouan, Morocco) attempted to raise audiences to a higher plane through repetitive beats and chants. As the elders looked on, however, one got the idea they were giving the younger B team a shot, and after an hour it was time to leave.
For the real Fes experience, however, one had only to enjoy each evening's free concert in the large plaza outside the medina's great gate, That's where you could hear Moroccan groups such as Mazagan and Darga\ turn up the volume for tens of thousands of fans and curious medina residents, many of whom expressed their hurling younger brothers high into the air. Darga, from Casablanca, cranked up a ten-man fusion spectacular that mixed everything from reggae, hip-hop, and acid rock with Algerian rai, Andalusia riffs, and trancey gnawa rhythms. It was exactly what a festival concerned with preserving the sacred and traditional in a complex contemporary world was supposed to be about.
Comments
badri says:
Dear Mr. Richard Gehr:
Saw your posting about Fes Festival concerts. Would like to touch base with you. Please let me have your email contact.
Regards: Badri
06/24/07 04:40 PM