A rare chance to experience authentic Gnawa music from Morocco...

Thanks to popular demand we are excited to announce that alongside many other fantastic teachers and musicians we have invited Jil Gnawa back to the Intercultural Summer School. if you came last year you will remember how inspiring they were. If you know nothing about this music, Doris is the place to find out

There will be a healing Lila, qarqba and dance workshops and an improvisational collaboration between the Brazilian, Cuban and Maghrebi musicians on site that will take us we know not where.

The group JIL GNAWA is composed of of Moroccan musicians who are authentic Gnawa dancers and singers. Imbued with this music since childhood, they offer a repertoire of ritual music composed of a mixture of secular African songs and sacred songs from the great Sufi tradition

Gnawa comes from the word Guinean, eg the great empire of western Sudan which included Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Senegal and Niger. Towards the late 17C the Arab conquest in North Africa brought with it a flood of new slaves, among them the Gnawa

The therapeutic aspect of this music is very important in Morocco.The Gnawa play in the street or are invited into the house of a private sponsor to conduct a ceremony with a specific purpose: to heal, bring good luck or neutralize negative influences

In Morocco, a Gnawa group always consists of the master (maâlem) and the musicians. The instruments they use are the guimbri, a long lute with three strings, the  qarqba, large, metal castanets and the tabal, a cylindrical, wooden drum

This is powerful healing music with profound spiritual roots