"In 1998, the Gnaoua World Music Festival began modestly with the watchwords 'freedom', 'conviviality', 'universality', and 'fraternity'," recalled Neila Tazi, director of the Festival.
The 18th edition of the Gnaoua World Music Festival, organised under the High Patronage of H.M. King Mohammed VI, will take place from 14 to 17 May in Essaouira, the organisers announced on Thursday in Casablanca.
This edition is intended to be a platform for dialogue and rapprochement for all artists coming from the four corners of the world, stressed the Festival director, Neila Tazi, during a press conference for the presentation of the artistic programme of this Festival.
She added that this edition marks the beginning of a new era of emancipation and public-private partnership for a project that, until now, had never benefited from funding from the city of Essaouira.
The city of Essaouira, she said, is resolutely convinced today that the time has come to commit more, to contribute to the financing of the festival to help ensure the sustainability of this event with multiple assets and to economic development or even social inclusion through culture, a powerful communication with messages of peace, openness, and humanism.
Neila Tazi subsequently recalled that in 1998, the Gnaoua World Music Festival began modestly with the watchwords "freedom", "conviviality", "universality", and "fraternity".
In 2014, she continued, "we were proud to share the publication of the anthology of Gnaoua music. This will be a cornerstone for the submission by Morocco last March of a request to UNESCO for the inscription of Gnaoua culture on the oral and intangible world heritage of humanity".
This process, supported by the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, "should be completed in two years when the festival will then be 20 years old," stressed Neila Tazi, hoping strongly that this exceptional anniversary will be the occasion to celebrate this beautiful consecration.
"This edition will be special with a unique programme, putting at the heart of the event meetings between world music artists and great Gnaoua maâlmin," stressed, for his part, the artistic director of the Festival, maâlem Abdeslam Alikane.
The public and free shows will be held on Place Moulay Hassan, the Beach Stage, and the terrace of the Borj de Bab Marrakech for open-air concerts. As for Dar Souiri and the Zaouia Issaoua, they will host the intimate concerts, he made known.
The Festival, he explained, opens this year with a wonderful meeting that pays tribute to ancestral musical traditions coming from two continents.
It is Africa and Asia that will meet through two musicians who are custodians of a precious musical heritage: maâlem Hamid El Kasri, a worthy representative of the Gnaoua, and Humayun Khan, a virtuoso musician from Afghanistan.
These two musicians, who will harmoniously combine the sounds of Morocco, India, and Afghanistan, will offer a repertoire consisting of their original compositions and traditional music.
On the programme for this edition are also maâlem Mohamed Kouyou accompanied on stage by the Nigerian Tony Allen, a living legend of afro-beat, as well as maâlem Aziz Baqbou and Jauk, the white Gnaoui, a one-man band keen on musical experiments of all kinds.
Maâlem Mustapha Baqbou will meet on stage with Mikkel Nordso, a Danish guitarist, to offer the public a fusion resulting from modern, popular, and jazz music.
For his part, the virtuoso saxophonist Kenny Garrett (USA) will meet maâlem Hassan Boussou, who feeds on all musical influences, and the two artists will present to the public a direct fusion between Gnaoui music and jazz, while Mahmoud Guinia, a maâlem from Essaouira, will meet on stage the eminent drummer Karim Ziad from Algeria.
In addition to the solo concerts, there is also the "Arbre à Palabres" (Palaver Tree) forum, one of the must-attend events of the Gnaoua and World Music Festival of Essaouira.
Created in 2006, this Forum for dialogue and exchange will be held every afternoon (from 4 p.m.) at the French Institute of Essaouira, where Gnaoui artists and world music guests will dialogue freely in a friendly atmosphere on themes related to world music.
