Morocco and Israel to Celebrate Andalusian Music

Rabat – To celebrate Muslim-Jewish Andalusian music, two concerts will be held on March 30 and 31, 2022 in Rabat and Casablanca.

The first concert will be held on March 30, 2022, at 8:30 p.m. at Rabat’s Mohammed V National Theater. The second concert will take place on Thursday, March 31, 2022, at 8:30 p.m. at Casablanca’s Palais du Mechouar.

This exceptional cultural event will feature a prominent line-up of renowned Moroccan and Israeli artists, including Emil Zrihan, the solo singer endowed with a remarkably powerful countertenor voice. Another artist at the concert is Abderrahim Souiri, one of the main supporters of Arab-Andalusian music, a musical genre that he modernized and popularized. They will be joined by Abir El Abed, the Tangier singer known for her Arab-Judeo-Andalusian style.

The event is a collaboration between the Israeli Andalusian Orchestra of Ashdod and the Moroccan Association of Andalusian Music. The concerts will be under the leadership of Grand Maestro Mohamed Briouel.

The Israeli Andalusian Orchestra of Ashdod had already performed at the Atlantic Andalusian Festival of Essaouira in 2018 and 2019.

Since the cooperation between Morocco and Israel was reinvigorated in 2020, the two countries have intensified their economic, commercial, and cultural relations.

The Moroccan delegation that traveled to Tel Aviv Sunday, March 13, for the inauguration of the first direct airline connecting Casablanca and Tel Aviv was made up of more than just businessmen. It also included the president of the National Museums Foundation (FNM) Mehdi Qotbi.

As culture is a powerful tool for international cooperation, Qotbi had a packed schedule in Israel. During his three-day visit to Israel, Qotbi worked to establish connections with the heads of museums in the Jewish state, in order to bolster cultural and artistic ties between the two countries.

The Moroccan Symphonyat Orchestra and the Jerusalem East & West Orchestra two weeks ago signed a partnership agreement to promote musical creativity and fraternity. The partnership intends to strengthen social, cultural, and economic ties between the two countries. Maestro Tom Cohen directed the two orchestras at the Song of the Dove Festival from March 2 to 4 in Israel.

Background:

Since its inception in Ashdod in 1994, the Israeli Andalusian Orchestra has been preserving and spreading the musical heritage created during Spain’s Golden Age.

For centuries, Jews and Muslims wrote their own words to the same melodies, some in Hebrew and some in Arabic. These songs have become the pulsating heart of the piyyut tradition of North African Jews. Indeed, a true cultural bridge between Judaism and Islam.

A piyyut is a poem written to replace, beautify, or preface a passage from the Jewish liturgy or a liturgical rite.

The Andalusian Orchestra won the Israel Prize in 2006 for its contribution “in providing Israeli Andalusian piyyut poetry, poetry and music. For its success in making Andalusian music and the singing of piyyutim part of the colors of contemporary Israeli culture. “

The Andalusian Orchestra consists of 40 musicians, some of whom play according to notes on Western classical instruments, while others have grown up on Andalusian music, playing by memory and practicing pieces passed down from generation to generation.

The singing and the piyyutim are integral parts of the Andalusian musical work, as well as the control of the orchestra soloists of the Hebrew and Arabic piyyut.