This item from BBC was seen at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/5054252.stm (link from Google alert)... DZO
Musicians teach the world to talk By Adam Blenford BBC News, Fez The Fez Festival of World Sacred Music is an ambitious attempt to combine musical excellence with debates about globalisation and international issues. When Keyvan Chemirani was a young boy, he sat at home in France and listened to his father play music with the masters. As the son of a great master of the zarb, an ancient Persian drum, he quickly developed a natural understanding of musical rhythm and form. Two decades on Chemirani, now a world-renowned zarb master himself, is the driving force behind a cross-continental collaboration between his own family and musicians from India and Mali. Performing at this year's Festival of World Sacred Music in Fez, Morocco, the words and sounds of Farsi, Tamil and Bambara, a west African language, won a standing ovation from an appreciative audience. Chemirani, who has spent three years on the project, was clearly touched. "For me this festival is about a very high level of art," he told the BBC. Chemirani's 12-strong collective, also featuring Indian Tamil singer Sudha Ragunathan and Bambara vocalist Nahawa Doumbia of Mali, is united only by music, but on stage they sounded like a well-honed unit. "There are some tensions, but there is also grace. We have become friends, and we respect each other, and we are proud." In reality they could afford just 10 days in a French recording studio before they emerged cradling a "fragile" product. "Every language has its own rhythm," Chemirani said. "Even if you don't understand the meanings, the rhythms and the sounds get into your mind and speak to you. "If you really want to make a meeting between different traditions, you need more than just masters," Chemirani said, praising his collective. "You need people who are willing to take off their crown, people who are willing to share." A serious joke Yet the audience at Chemirani's concert was well-heeled, reflecting the inequalities inherent in staging Fez's festival. While the elite flock to evening shows at the grand Bab Makina, a courtyard in Fez's old medina, and intellectuals debate global problems during the day, ordinary Moroccans are priced out of the showpiece concerts. Organisers admit prices are high - as high as $57 (£31) for Chemirani's concert, the most expensive of the week-long event. But they point to the popularity of free concerts held throughout Fez and say the tiered pricing is a way to keep attracting quality performers and intellectual heavyweights - this year's star debutant was German film-maker Wim Wenders. At a hotel in one of old Fez's grand traditional houses, those heavyweights dine each lunchtime on a four-course feast. The cast of characters may sound like the beginning of a bad joke - "Have you heard the one about the Hindu, the Muslim and the Jew?" - but the dialogue is real enough. "There are lots of inter-faith dialogues going on in the world, but only here do you have the arts as a backdrop," says Benjamin Barber, a professor of political science at the University of Maryland in the US. "What we need is a bridge between the worlds of faith and democracy, which is what Fez provides." Devotion and dervishes Hours before Chemirani's ensemble took to the stage, Omar Sermini, the son of a Syrian sheikh, sang Islamic Sufi melodies under the shade of a centuries-old barbary oak tree in Fez's Batha gardens. In Aleppo, the young Sermini learned to sing the Koran by heart before performing in front of the city's Sufi elders, the final stage of a Syrian singer's traditional training. Watched by a mixed crowd of Muslims and western tourists, Sermini and an Aleppo muezzin, Hassan Haffar, wove a mystical spell of devotional songs and rhythms. A dervish whirled away to the delight of both religious and secular, with Muslims among the crowd answering Sermini's Islamic incantations. As he left the stage, the shy singer from Syria described why he came to sing in Fez, sounding as he did so not unlike the gregarious Benjamin Barber, the US academic who once advised President Bill Clinton. "Fez and Aleppo are the same, they are cities of history and culture," Sermini said. "For me Aleppo is the passage to heaven, and music is a universal language." ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Protect your PC from spy ware with award winning anti spy technology. It's free. http://us.click.yahoo.com/97bhrC/LGxNAA/yQLSAA/TpIolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AfricanLanguages/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
