Fez between mystical ecstasy and world resonance
The 28th edition of the Fes Festival of World Sacred Music (FFMSM) continues with a bang at the Bab El Makina site and the Jnan Sbill garden. The program for this Sunday, May 18, 2025 featured the Mystical Whirlings, propelled by the wind that blew through the festival’s main site this evening.
Coming all the way from Istanbul, the Sufi ensemble Meydan Meşkleri Topluluğu gave a spellbinding performance at Bab El Makina. This sacred dance has its roots in the thought of Djalâl ad-Dîn Rûmî: “All paths lead to God. I have chosen the path of dance and music”. For Rûmî, everything in the universe is movement, rotation: from stars to atoms, the spiral embodies the very principle of life. Sema, a Sufi spiritual practice, is born of this quest for ecstasy. It can be manifested through whilrling, but also through poetry and music. After the 13th century, its practitioners structured this practice in the form of Mevlevi ceremonies (Mevlevi Ayini), a musical expression deeply rooted in the Turkish Makam tradition.
Elsewhere, the duo formed by Clément Janinet and Adama Sidibé thrilled the Jnan Sbil garden with their ″Concerto for Sokou″. The project was born out of a trip to Bamako in 2020, when Janinet met Sidibé, the last professional sokou player in Mali. The result is a unique dialogue between Western violin and African fiddle.
The same venue has hosted the Master Musicians of Jajouka, masters of ancestral music played under the trees of the Andalusian garden. The village of Jajouka, nestled in the foothills of the Rif mountains, became even more famous in the 1950s, when Tangiers became a land of inspiration for the Beat Generation. The city attracted major figures such as Paul Bowles, William Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, Ginsberg, and Brion Gysin. The latter co-founded the “1001 nuits” (″1000 Nights″) café-restaurant with painter Mohamed Hamri, where Jajouka musicians are regular performers. This is also where Brian Jones discovered this sonic heritage in 1968.
Since ancient times, wind instruments and their continuous sounds have been used as a means of spiritual awakening. From the Indian double flute satâra to traditional oboes such as the Kurdish zurna, Egyptian mizmar or North African ghaïta, breath becomes a vehicle for trance. Jajouka’s music, played notably on the rhaita (local oboe), is part of this ancestral tradition that has captivated the Rolling Stones, Maceo Parker, Ornette Coleman, Talvin Singh, and Bill Laswell, among others.
Clément Janinet, trained as a teenager with Didier Lockwood, has made a name for himself with his Space Galvachers trio. Clément Janinet collaborates with a wide range of artists, including Olivier Araste (Lindigo), Etienne Mbappé, Ray Lema, and Adama Dramé.
Adama Sidibé took to the stage later in the evening. The festival’s host began his musical career as a child, playing the Djourou Kelen, a single-stringed instrument, as he guided herds from northern Mali to Côte d’Ivoire. He learned the sokou in his teens. This single-stringed fiddle, the voice of West African shepherds, crosses the borders of Mali, The Gambia, Burkina-Faso, Senegal, and Guinea-Bissau. Long forgotten, the instrument was revived by Ali Farka Touré.
Y.S.A.
