Spirit of Fez, US outreach road-show for sacred music festival

The annual sacred musical festival of Fez will promote its spirit of cross-cultural exchanges, the respect of cultural plurality and peaceful co-existence during a month-long tour in 18 US cities to start on March 6.

More than 30,000 people will get the chance to live an unprecedented experience of song and dance from the Christian, Jewish and Muslim traditions, with singer Francoise Atlan, the Women's Hadra Ensemble, and the Anointed Jackson Sisters gospel group. Some of the world's most revered artists from across the globe will be present to promote the "Spirit of Fez."

The event will premier at the prestigious Library of Congress, before the artists, including an Algerian vocalist accompanied by a Lebanese-American percussionist, an African-American gospel group from North Carolina, a Moroccan women's ensemble, an Israeli and a Palestinian musician, set out to engage and educate American audiences by sharing the music that they hold sacred.

The Festival of World Sacred Music held each June in the Moroccan spiritual capital city of Fez is designed to help people reach out across their differences to build bridges with diverse communities through the power of music and to produce evidence that in a world where globalization and politics are heightening tensions, which are rapidly destroying communities, art and culture are powerful catalysts for civic dialogue as they transcend geographic, cultural and social boundaries.