Gnaoua Festival, homecoming | L’Economiste
The year 2023 seems to be the year of the resumption of a cultural life that had been dimmed by the global crisis and its consequences. So, 2023 will see a revival of summer festivals. After the Jazzablanca jazz festival, it is the turn of the “Gnaoua and World Music Festival” of the city of Essaouira to announce its return to its original version.
“Though the global crisis has forced us to postpone the festival for three consecutive years, it has not succeeded in stopping our momentum or our determination. The Essaouira Gnaoua and World Music Festival is fueled by passion and perseverance. Today, more than ever, the preparation of this 24th edition proves that this spirit of resilience has never left us”, says Neila Tazi, producer and founder of the festival. The musicians of the world meet, once again, in the “City of Trade Winds” (as Essaouira is nicknamed), at the invitation of their colleagues the Gnaoua Mâalems (Gnaoua “Masters”).
With its grand opening parade and around forty concerts planned to take place between the main stages of the Moulay Hassan Square and the stage on the beach, the more intimate sessions in the zaouïas (Muslim religious building which constitutes the center around which a brotherhood is structured), the event, which each year attracts some 35 to 40,000 festival-goers from the four corners of the Earth, promises like every year real moments of grace between fusion concerts, intimate evenings, improvised jam sessions, and great debates of ideas. It must be said that despite the crisis, the festival had not completely disappeared. Indeed, after two years of a heavy silence, imposed by the health crisis, the festival, organized by the Yerma Gnaoua association, wanted to honor the Mâalems by putting together a historic concert bringing together more than 115 musicians on stage and broadcast by the Al Aoula TV channel on December 25, 2021.
In 2022, it is a blazing tour in the cities of the country, under the sign of the musical fusion which took the Mâalems to four cities of the Kingdom. The Mâalems were accompanied by great international musicians, like Farka Touré, Jamaaladeen Tacuma, Piers Faccini, or Avishai Cohen. This twenty-fourth edition, which returns to its initial formula, intends to celebrate, once again, the richness and diversity of Gnaoua music and many other forms of world music.
The sounds of the ubiquitous guembri and rattlesnakes will mingle with the sounds of jazz in all its diversity, with flamenco, reggae, salsa or even Tuareg or Tamil rhythms. The public attending the Festival will have beautiful meetings like the one between the “Tambours du Burundi-Amagaba” drummers and Sanaa Marahati, or with Mâalem Mohamed Kouyou and Mâalem Saïd Kouyou. A beautiful explosive fusion in the opening concert. Since its creation in 1998, the Essaouira Gnaoua and World Music Festival has established itself as one of the major cultural events in Morocco and in the continent. With a special but coherent and accessible program, the festival attracts thousands of visitors from all over the world each year, but also many artists and intellectuals. Driven by its original philosophy, its spirit of sharing and discovery, the festival is a unique experience that is both spiritual and artistic.
A.Bo
