
Berklees New Program in Morocco Explores an African Musical Tradition The partnership with the Gnaoua and World Music Festival that helps musicians dig deeper into their artistry and bridge musical cultures.
By
Kimberly Ashton
December 9, 2024
A quarter-century ago, Essaouira was mostly a quiet old port on the coastal edge of Morocco, out of the way for anyone not looking for it. Those who made pilgrimages there were mostly artists and musicians, including the likes of Jimi Hendrix and Carlos Santana, who came to explore a style of music that's said to be a musical wellspring from which the blues and other African-diaspora genres later arose.
Essaouira was a very interesting city but was really marginalized. It was like a hippie city, says Neila Tazi, owner of A3 Communications, a marketing and public relations agency that also organizes cultural events. In 1998, she and a group of friends decided the city would be a perfect spot to start a small festival for aficionados who had an interest in the region's distinctive Gnawa (also written as Gnaoua ) music.
Neila Tazi
Image courtesy of A3 Communications
It wasn't music we would see on stages or on TV, Tazi says. In 1999, A3 changed that by launching a free, open-air festival with one stage, and enjoyed a small success. Then word started to spread.
Within two years, nearly half a million people came to Essaouira to attend what some now call the Moroccan Woodstock, a multistage event featuring dozens of concerts. Over time, the Gnaoua and World Music Festival has turned the city into a year-round musical mecca. In December, 60 Minutes aired a 22-minute spot on the festival and the culture it celebrates.
If you say Montreux, you think jazz. If you say Cannes, you think cinema. And if you say Essaouira, you think Gnawa. It's totally linked now, Tazi, who is now also a senator in Morocco, says. And thanks to her efforts and those of her team, in 2019 Gnawa culture entered UNESCOs Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
Maria Iturriaga Martinez
Originally practised by groups and individuals from slavery and the slave trade dating back to at least the 16th century, Gnawa culture [combines] ancestral African practices, Arab-Muslim influences and native Berber cultural performances, the UNESCO inscription reads.
It's this cultural and musical richness that also attracted Berklee, which partnered with the festival in June to launch a concurrent six-day educational program designed for professional musicians from around the world.
Berklee had been looking for ways to further engage in Africa, and the festival had been on its radar for several years but the pandemic had put a potential partnership on ice. In 2022, the festival returned after a two-year hiatus, and last year, when Tazi reached out to Berklee, everyone agreed the timing was now right for a partnership.
Jason Camelio
The Gnaoua and World Music Festival was very much aligned with the values and the history that Berklee also represents, even more so with the fact that Berklee acknowledges in its mission [that it is] founded on the culture and music of the African diaspora, says Mar a Mart nez Iturriaga, senior vice president of Berklee Global.
The initiative ties into the work Berklee Global is doing in engaging with critically important musical traditions, says Jason Camelio, assistant vice president of global initiatives. It's arguable that the roots of the blues come from the Gnawa music tradition. If you really dig into the [Gnawa stringed] instrument-the guembri-and the spiritual tradition of the music, you're going to find that there are strong, strong connections, he says.
Origin StoriesLike distant cousins who share traits inherited from a common ancestor, many African-diaspora genres that later developed across the Americas can trace their lineage back to sounds that still reverberate through Gnawa music.
Leo Blanco
Image by Pamela Hersch
We stay with what is made here in this part of the Atlantic, and it's jazz or rap or you name it in Latin America. But there's not much consciousness among people in the Americas of what's going on in Africa and [that] we got a lot of our music from them, says Professor Leo Blanco, one of the five Berklee instructors who came from Boston and Valencia, Spain, to teach in the program. So I think that bridge needs to be re-established again in a different way.
The original connection Blanco is referring to was established by the slave trade as enslaved people were brought from sub-Saharan Africa to places such as Morocco, and beyond. With them came their music. Some say that the krakeb, an iron castanet that's prominent in the rhythmically rich and complex music of the Gnawa, came from the metal used to shackle slaves. Krakebs, along with a three-string bass lute called a guembri (a potential precursor to the banjo), constitute the genre's primary instruments, along with the voice.
Abdel Kander
Image by Nicolas Lemoine
In Morocco, sub-Saharan rhythms blended with Arabic and Sufi styles to produce a genre steeped in spirituality and used in ceremonies that induce trances, but in North America they took different paths and made their way into blues and jazz.
I try to get the Gnawi in John Coltrane, or the Gnawi in Dizzy Gillespie or in Thelonious Monk, says program participant Abdel Kander, a Moroccan bebop guitarist and Gnawa music enthusiast who works in cybersecurity in Paris. Some of the tunes really [lend] themselves quite easily to that sort of a rhythm and groove.
Anas Chlih, a Moroccan who's been playing the festival for 14 years and who attended the Berklee program, agrees: You discover when you start to research Moroccan music that jazz is in here already.
From left: Javier Vercher, Jamey Haddad 73, Ron
North America Stories
03/06/2026
SES and Viva, Mexico's ultra low-cost airline, have launched multi-orbit satellite inflight connectivity on Viva's Airbus aircraft. A total of 60 A320s ...
03/06/2026
The College Football Playoff, ESPN, and TNT Sports have announced kick times and...
03/06/2026
RED Digital Cinema will exhibit at Cine Gear Expo 2026 (Booth 33, June 5-6, Universal Studios Lot), hosting three panels and hands-on product demonstrations.
P...
03/06/2026
Roku has announced the Soccer Zone, a dedicated hub for FIFA World Cup 2026 content available across the United States, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Argent...
03/06/2026
Liverpool FC and Wasabi Technologies have announced a multi-year extension of their partnership, with Wasabi continuing as the club's official cloud storage...
03/06/2026
Grass Valley has announced that Australian News Channel (ANC), operator of Sky News Australia, has deployed Grass Valley AMPP as part of the relocation of its n...
03/06/2026
The Riedel Group has announced the appointment of Gudrun Scharler as CEO of Riedel Networks. She succeeds Michael Martens, who has led Riedel Networks since 201...
03/06/2026
Clear-Com has announced the deployment of its intercom solutions at Itaka Arena ...
03/06/2026
Scott Coker has announced six senior executive appointments for his new global MMA promotion, which launched earlier this year with $60 million in financing. Ad...
03/06/2026
Telemundo, the exclusive Spanish-language home of the FIFA World Cup 2026, has announced its digital and social media programming for the tournament, running Ju...
03/06/2026
The Bundesliga has announced the launch of Captain, an AI assistant built into t...
03/06/2026
Anthony James Partners (AJP) is serving as technology consultant for a moderniza...
03/06/2026
Audio-Technica has announced the recipients of its annual sales rep firm awards for the 2025-26 fiscal year. The awards were presented by Jim Schanz, Executive ...
03/06/2026
iodyne will exhibit at Cine Gear Expo 2026 alongside RED Digital Cinema and Adob...
03/06/2026
The broadcaster will deploy 39 cameras for game coverage, six cameras for studio...
03/06/2026
The 2026 FIFA World Cup is providing a great opportunity for not only Fox Sports...
03/06/2026
Sony Electronics is introducing the SRG-AS10, a 4K 60p compatible PTZ Auto Framing camera that uses Sony's proprietary AI to automatically recognize and tra...
03/06/2026
Game Creek Video's Flagship A, B, C, and D unit will wind up its first year ...
03/06/2026
According to Caretta Research, the sports-rights market may be hitting the brake...
03/06/2026
Retrieval still courtesy of Tribeca.
By Jessica Herndon
This year, the Tribeca...
03/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
03/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
03/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
03/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
03/06/2026
For more than three decades, Re-recording Mixer Andrew Wilson, AMPS, CAS, has helped bring the natural world to the screen with exceptional audio enjoyed by mil...
03/06/2026
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will showcase its latest innovations for modern AV production environments at InfoComm 2026 (Booth N...
03/06/2026
DPA Microphones will present a comprehensive portfolio of integrated audio solutions designed to meet the evolving needs of today's professional AV environm...
03/06/2026
Lightware announces the GVN-HC-TX220AP, a new transmitter in the Gemini GVN 1G AV-over-IP family that introduces full-featured USB-C for professional 1Gb AV-ove...
03/06/2026
Evergent, the customer management and monetization leader for streaming and digital subscription businesses, and Minno, the global leader in faith-based content...
03/06/2026
Alfalite, Europe's only LED display manufacturer, has completed a new broadcast installation with the deployment of two UHD Finepix 1.5 MATIX AlfaCOB LED di...
03/06/2026
Broadcast Solutions, a leading systems integrator and provider of innovative solutions for the broadcast media industry, is completing a contract to build eight...
03/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
03/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
03/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
03/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
03/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
03/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
03/06/2026
Creamsource, known for its tried-and-true Vortex Series of cinematic lighting, has announced the Vortex2 (V2) and Vortex2 Soft (V2S), two compact additions to t...
03/06/2026
Faster, More Flexible AI Matting Fuels Boris FX Silhouette
Jessie Electa Petrov June 2, 2026
0 Comments
The 2026 release helps artists tackle complex ...
03/06/2026
La T l 's National League Hockey Expansion Powered by Blackmagic Design
Brie Clayton June 2, 2026
0 Comments
Blackmagic Videohub 120 120 12G provi...
03/06/2026
ZY Optics to Offer Exclusive First Look at Zone T1 Cine Kit at Cine Gear Expo 20...
03/06/2026
Berklee Alumni St. Vincent and Ruby Plume to Perform Together on St. Vincents 20...
03/06/2026
Built Different: Inside Colossal Biosciences & the Big Bet to Make Extinction Reversible Published on Jun 3, 2026 Categories: Featured News
LinkedIn Corpor...
03/06/2026
At CVPR, NVIDIA is unveiling new physical AI agent skills that help researchers ...
03/06/2026
What makes a robot gripper useful isn't that it can pick up one object - it&...
02/06/2026
Tennis Channel has completed a transition from satellite-based distribution to a...
02/06/2026
Daktronics has announced the 2026 High School Video Summit, a two-day educational event for high school educators and student production teams, taking place Jun...
02/06/2026
Fandango will bring Telemundo's live Spanish-language coverage of the FIFA W...
02/06/2026
All Women's Sports Network (AWSN) has announced the live television schedule...
02/06/2026
Spalk, a cloud-based multilingual commentary and production platform, has announced three new partnerships: Ligue 1 (English and Portuguese highlights), Eurolea...