Festival of Sacred Music in Fez - 2010 edition - June 4 to 12
Fez and its Festival
Lively and hospitable, Fez does not reveal its secrets easily provided. From the top of the hills seem to sleep where the tombs of the necropolis Merinid extends a sparkling sea of roofs copper by high walls splashed with light, containing all their anonymity behind a legacy that only requires time to prove to travelers .
Fez, which was for centuries a political and intellectual capital of Morocco, had become a center for meetings and exchanges. It is reported that Sylvester II (Gerbert of Aurillac), Pope from 999 to 1003, stayed in his youth for the purposes of study after which he introduced Arabic numerals to Europe.
Maimonides, Jewish physician and philosopher, taught at the Qaraouine. The work of this philosopher is a wonderful illustration of the symbiosis of Jewish and Islamic cultures that existed in Andalusia and echoed similar to Fez.
The Fez Festival of World Sacred Music and Fez Encounters, created in 1994 and 2001, are part of the scholarly tradition, artistic and spiritual city.
Since their creation, these events have had increasing success.
The Fez Festival was designated in 2001 by the UN as one of the milestones that have contributed in a remarkable way, the dialogue of civilizations.
Alongside the Festival, it has developed an international network of support and media coverage. Thus was born the United States the organization Spirit of Fez Inc., Which organizes every 2 years, a program of the Festival and the Rencontres de Fes in 20 U.S. cities.
A tour was organized during the months of October and November 2006 in several U.S. cities including a concert at New York's Carnegie Hall.
Dissemination, through these events, this "Spirit of Fez" now radiates from Fez in different places of the world.
Several other cities such as Milan, London or Madrid have wanted to be a relay to extend the message of the Festival and the Rencontres de Fès: the dialogue of spirituality through music, creating a culture of peace promoted by globalization plural, respectful of ethical and spiritual values.
Festival of Sacred Music in Fez - 2010 edition - On a quest of another sacred
The Festival of World Sacred Music is the landmark event of the Spirit of Fes Foundation. Thanks to its influence and its mission, the Festival is part of 16 years in a universal mission of peace and reconciliation between peoples.
The impact and national and international reputation of this event grows and deepens year by year.
The Fez Festival runs through the vast spaces of songs and rhythms that have created the world's cultures since the dawn of time. It has become a major event for world music on the shores of the Mediterranean .....
Fez, the crucible of Muslim civilization was born of the mystical quest of pilgrims of yesteryear, these travelers in mind that, through some distant land shaped by their nomadic approach, a certain conception of the sacred. 
Today, faced with a changing world where instead of the sacred in everyday life is increasingly limited, it is through art and music, that it can still take refuge in a world where emotional remains the quest for wholeness or ecstasy, which can cause tearing of the absence of the beloved, beloved of such sing a few great voices of the East. The sacred today is brought to sail, in spite of himself, a world of ritual and transmission in an urban world in which he must continually reinvent themselves in different forms. That's what this festival tries to accurately value artistically year: the confrontation of a traditional heritage and universal face of globalization.
But this festival is also a crossing, the oceans and continents to discover the great traditions of Asia and Africa and those of an East and a West that constantly intermingle.
True heritage of humanity, the traditional arts are the last refuge of the supernatural and dreams and extend the ancient beauty of a gesture revealed, like, graceful dancers descending from the sky goddesses, apsaras of the Royal Ballet of Cambodia, or child dancers Gotipuas Hindu temples of Orissa, or the one, nagging, a Sufi ritual of Zanzibar.
This island will be at one time the cornerstone of slavery of the peoples of Africa, an Africa, which will see its culture and its faith and continue through Sufism in the Indian Ocean or the gospel of black America epitomized by artists like the Blind Boys of Alabama.
Faced with new monotheistic religions Christian and Muslim, old ancestral beliefs, such as the Master Drummers of Burundi, however, continue to transmit even the Caribbean, with the Gwo Ka drums from Guadeloupe who disclose their ceremonial rhythms with the jazz musician David Murray.
Creativity of the people of the mountains, seas and deserts will be revealed through a musical journey into night riads in the medina. This trip is both fun and initiatory be an invitation to discover another East, the nomadic Mongolian steppes or plains of Anatolia, the mystique of the great rivers of Bengal where poetry is declaimed with the softness or strength major rivers of India.
Search also under the starry night in the medina, the music of the great cities, crossroads of civilizations, or Constantinople as Kabul and getting lost in the maze of alleys become the global space of an evening, celebrating Jerusalem, the city of three religions Jordi Savall, enjoy the music of the old Jewish musicians of Baghdad, is another way to discover the richness and cultural role of the great historic cities.
In the East, the voice has always embodied the sacred and is the essence of what is revealed in a world where art draws its existence in the divine word and the mystical poetry of Shahram Nazeri, the symbol of Persian classical singing in Sabah Fakhri , Of Mohamed Bajeddoud to Dhafer Youssef at the origin of a new approach to Sufi singing, all present at this festival.
Fez and the new edition will remain the center of the excitement and festive music where the sacred thread can be a real cultural dialogue.
