Fes Travel Forum

My partner & I are going to be escaping xmas in Fes for 5 days - 23rd-28th December. We've been downloading Moroccan music to get a feel of it, and we'd love to hear some live music while we're there. Does anyone know where we might find some? We've never been to Morocco before and I realise that my partner as a male will be able to go to places I can't, but we do like to do everything together if possible.

Amazingly, Fez, the city of artisans, poets, musicians and the like, has no real live music scene to boast of. There are infrequent concerts sponsored by the Institut Francais or the Instituto Cervantes, the former having a beautiful riad called Dar Batha where concerts take place.

There is also the Fes Festival of World Sacred Music every year in June, drawing thousands to the city to hear some of the best world music on offer, in addition to local musicians from Fes, the Rif, and the middle Atlas villages. Of course, this doesn't help you for your visit!

You do see quite a bit of music on the streets, on occassion. Take a seat at one of the cafes just inside Bab Boujeloud for an hour or so, and you'll see plenty of "Gnawa" musicians making the rounds, playing for a few dirhams tip.

The question here isn't so much an issue of gender, its that the music of Fes, very much either a folk tradition or religious in nature, hasn't found a popular outlet, save the more expensive restaurants where with your dinner you will probably have live music of some kind. Probably the best places for this are the Maison Bleu restaurant in Batha, or the Moroccan restaurant in the Palais Jamaii. Both are splurges and I'd probably go with the latter for overall value, but you may also want to research other Riads that open their doors to outside guests, and enquire whether they will have live music during your stay- being high season and that the city will be full of tourists, I'm sure that more than just a few places will be doing something special with regards live entertainment. Out of curiosity, what Moroccan music have you been able to download?

Thanks Chanito. I've been looking forward to hearing the Gnawa musicians.
I'm not actually sure what my partner downloaded, I'll let you know when I find out (there's so much music on our hard drive that we often play it once and never find it again!)