‘Gnawa Night’ is coming to Barcelona in the next session of the #Trànsits series
The Barcelona Music Museum and the Office for Religious Affairs (OAR) are organising the ‘Trànsits: les músiques de l’esperit’ [Transitions: Music of the Spirit] series as part of L’Auditori’s ‘Poder o revolta’ (Power or revolt) season. The series began in 2022 and seeks to highlight the ties between the spiritual practices of Barcelona’s different religious communities and music through a series of conversations and concerts. After the first session on the music of the Protestant Reformation, ‘Licht der Sinnen’, now comes the second event, entitled ‘Gnawa Night: Music and Transitions in Morocco’.
GNAWA NIGHT. MUSIC AND TRANSITIONS IN MOROCCO
The second session of the second edition of the ‘Trànsits: les músiques de l’esperit’ [Transitions: Music of the Spirit] series will be held on 4 November with the title ‘Gnawa Night: Music and Transitions in Morocco’. This event will invite the audience to participate in a lila, a healing ritual of the Gnawa community of Morocco where music and dance create an atmosphere that takes the body through a transition to purify it.
The Gnawa community is originally from the sub-Saharan regions and are the descendants of the slaves moved to Morocco and around the Maghreb by the Arabic and Berber governments. Today they are living in European cities like Paris, Brussels and Barcelona. Gnawas are mystical Muslim Sufi brotherhoods or turuqs with religious practices in which music that interplays classic Islamic and pre-Islamic folk sounds plays a central role. Furthermore, their religious practices were declared Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2019.
Lila translates literally as ‘night’. This refers to the nocturnal nature of this ritual, which is divided into seven phases identified with seven colours. Music plays a key role throughout the entire mystical act as a vehicle for the ceremony’s healing transition. The ritual begins with the tbels or drums, and it is always musically directed by a maalem or master, who plays the guembri, a stringed instrument with three plucked strings that make a low-pitched sound, accompanied by the karkabas, metal castanets that add a persistent rhythm to the low-pitched sound of the drum.
‘Gnawa Night’ will be held in the Ricson room at Hangar, the art production and research centre. It will begin with a conversation on the Gnawa community around the world and in the city of Barcelona, with a special emphasis on the importance of the lila in its culture. The dialogue will then segue into the ritual, driven by the music of the ensemble Gnawa Vibrations, which will offer the repertoire traditionally played in this type of ceremony.
CONVERSATION with Smail Ouazza, musician; Ilaria Sartori, ethnomusicologist; and Stefano Portelli, anthropologist. Limited places. Free admission with prior booking HERE.
- Day: Saturday, 4 November
- Venue: Ricson room at the Hangar centre (Carrer Emilia Coranty, 16)
- Time: 6:30 pm
CONCERT-RITUAL. The lila will be directed by the maalem Saimen Kherbouch and accompanied by the music of Gnawa Vibrations. SOLD OUT!!
- Day: Saturday, 4 November
- Venue: Ricson room at the Hangar centre (Carrer Emilia Coranty, 16)
- Time: There will be three shifts. Attendees must register for one of them:
- 4/11/2023, from 20:00 to 22:00 (first shift)
- 4/11/2023, from 22:00 to 00:00 (second shift)
- 5/11/2023, from 00 a.m. to 3:00 a.m. (third shift)
THE TRÀNSITS SERIES
Humanity’s religious, liturgical and spiritual practices have kept close ties with music and sound throughout history. This has led to an extraordinarily wide variety of musical forms used to create a bond between the community and transcendence. The ‘Trànsits: les músiques de l’esperit’ [Transitions: Music of the Spirit] series, organised by the Barcelona Music Museum and the Office for Religious Affairs (OAR), aims to spotlight this relationship, especially in terms of the different communities living in the city of Barcelona.
The second ‘Trànsits’ series kicked off with the session entitled ‘Licht der Sinnen: The Music of the Lutheran Reformation’, which focused on the Lutheran community’s celebration of Reformation Day. The session consisted of a conversation and later a liturgical office with the performance of two Bach cantatas, which are essential in Lutheran celebrations by serving as a vehicle for both emotion and doctrine. On Saturday 4 November, the series will continue with the activity ‘Gnawa Night: Music and Transitions in Morocco’.
SESSIONS IN THE SERIES
Sinulog. Commemoration of the Evangelisation of the Philippines
- Sunday 21 January starting at 4 pm. Sant Agustí church. Limited places. Free admission with prior booking. FURTHER INFORMATION.
Sinulog is a festival that originated in Cebu, Philippines, which commemorates the full adoption of Catholicism by the Philippine people. It combines Christian and local rituals. The main event takes place on the third Sunday in January, and it features a procession where the participants dance to the beat of traditional music, dressed in brightly-coloured clothing. The Philippine Catholic community in Barcelona has been celebrating Sinulog in the city for 30 years, and this year it is offering a display of the celebration’s traditional dance followed by the traditional Sinulog mass.
Kebyar. Music of the Balinese Gamelan
- Saturday 3 February at 8 pm. Alicia de Larrocha Hall at L’Auditori. Limited places. Price: 10 euros. FURTHER INFORMATION.
The gamelan is a traditional orchestra from the Indonesian islands of Java and Bali featuring music, which varies across a broad spectrum depending on the materials the instruments are made of. This type of orchestra originated with the tradition of the Gods who summoned the other mythological gods from the ancestral cultures, and it tends to be associated with the context around it. Specifically, the gamelan gong kebyar is characterised by the use of bronze instruments -hence the name ‘kebyar’, which means something like ‘bang’- and it emerged within a context of political uncertainty. The Barcelona Music Museum owns a set of instruments like this, and in their honour, the ensemble Gamelan Barasvara will offer a selection of kebyar pieces. CONCERT with the ensemble Gamelan Barasvara accompanied by the artists A. A. Arjuna Sutedja and A. A. Krishna Sutedja.
The Magal of Porokhane. Celebration of Muridiyya Sufism
- Saturday 24 February, time TBA. Teatre del Casinet d’Hostafrancs. Limited places. Free admission with prior booking. FURTHER INFORMATION.
The Magal of Porokhane is a celebration (‘magal’ in Wolof) of the Muslim Muridiyya brotherhood in Senegal dedicated to women. As part of this celebration, the Muridiyya Sufi community of Barcelona will display the practice of Dhikr, Zikr or Zikir (‘memory of God’), which includes the repetition of God’s different names and other words or phrases, often accompanied by music and dance, in an effort to keep the presence of God in their mind and heart. Unlike other Muslim groups, where this tends to be an individual act, for the Muridiyya brotherhood or tariqa it is a collective practice that gives rise to long rituals.
O Sidera. Ensamble Irini
- Thursday 14 March at 8 pm. Venue TBA. Limited places. Free admission with prior booking. FURTHER INFORMATION.
This activity will bring together Byzantine liturgical music and the sounds of the French-Flemish Renaissance. It will do so with the first performance in Spain of the Ensemble Irini, a polymorph vocal ensemble which will intersperse songs from the Greek liturgy of Constantinople prior to the Ottoman invasion in 1453, characterised by rigour and depth, with the twelve motets that comprise the Prophetia Sibyllarym by Orlando di Lasso, a seminal work in the French-Flemish Renaissance boasting a colourful, expressive, polyphonic language.
Shawn Mativetsky. Music of Northern India
- Friday 19 April at 8 pm. Alicia de Larrocha Hall 4 at L’Auditori. Limited places. Price: 10 euros. FURTHER INFORMATION.
The tabla is a pair of drums often used in the sound expressions of northern India and characterised by its expressiveness. Shawn Mativetsky, a pioneer in connecting classical Western and Indian music and an ambassador of the tabla in India, will offer a recital of this instrument, which will combine traditional solos with new compositions that afford an array of perspectives on the tabla.
Cuncordu Codronzanesu. Polyphony from the Oral Tradition in Sardinia
- Saturday 11 May starting at 6:30 pm. Crypt of the Sagrada Família Limited places. Free admission with prior booking. FURTHER INFORMATION.
On the island of Sardinia, cuncordu singing is a deeply rooted musical religious practice characterised by the quest for full achordal sounds through four male a cappella voices. These chants accompany important para-liturgical rites in Easter Week, like the Crucifixion, but they are also associated with masses that hold special meaning for the brotherhoods of the different churches. This practice has existed constantly for centuries in some towns and is currently being revived in others thanks to ensembles like Su Cuncordu Codronzianessu, which is coming to Barcelona in May to perform one of these liturgies as part of the ‘Trànsits’ series.
Orthodox Easter. The Music of the Romanian Orthodox Easter
- Saturday 18 May starting at 9:30 am. Barcelona’s St George Romanian Orthodox church. Limited places. Free admission with prior booking. FURTHER INFORMATION.
The Byzantine Orthodox church is filled with a sound dimension that stresses engaging in heavenly worship through chants. Thus Orthodox liturgies convey mysticism to the participants through melodies that are transcribed and written by hymnographers which are considered echoes of celestial beauty. This culminates in Romania, the heir to this tradition with a mix of Greek, Latin and Slavic cultures, in an unprecedented musical spiritual practice characterised by the recitation of polyphonic structures in unison. The Romanian Orthodox community of Barcelona invites the city’s residents to experience this in Saint George church as part of its Easter services.