Greetings from the final day of the World Sacred Music Festival in Fez. This photo was taken of me after opening night at the Bab Makina, easily one of the most breathtaking music venues I’ve ever experienced. Last night I got to cover the concert here of two huge pop stars of the Arab world, Asma Lmnawar from Morocco and Kazem el Saher from Iraq (though the women around me called him Kadim…his wikipedia page offers many different spellings of his name) for a wonderful local blog: A View From Fez. If I hadn’t been given the assignment by my new comrade Chris Witulski (who’s been covering many of the concerts for the site but was performing himself at another stage last night…he also took the photo of me above) I don’t think I’d have done any writing about the fest so far because it’s been so overwhelmingly rich, I haven’t had the clarity to shape my experiences yet. I hope more of that will come soon…though I am off to Senegal tomorrow for two weeks, and will likely engage in a whole new set of mindblowing sights and sounds. Please pop into the post just so you can get a little taste.
Special thanks to my writing partner of over 15 years, Claire Olivia Moed and to my mama for the amazing early birthday present of my first digital camera…I have put it to such good use…I will hopefully soon post a few videos here too. Second, I’d like to thank the great scholar of Senegalese music, Fiona McLaughlin from the University of Florida who was kind enough to put me in touch with two of her grad students living in Fez, Chris and Anne who have been so helpful on this journey. Salam Alaikum…more soon!
Come Sunday: Jazz, Trouble, Hallelujah 