Tetouan: Marcel Khalife Opens 27th International Oud Festival
Marcel Khalife opens the Tetouan oud festival on Oct. 29, the culture ministry says, with three nights of Mediterranean strings at the Español Theatre.
Photo: MAP
Lebanese composer and oud player Marcel Khalife opens the 27th International Oud Festival of Tetouan on Thursday evening, October 29, with a concert at the Español Theatre alongside Italian lute player Aurora Manfredi. The Culture Department of the ministry organising the event announced the programme.
The festival runs until Saturday, October 31, under the High Patronage of His Majesty King Mohammed VI. It carries the slogan “The Mediterranean, the three cultures” to mark Tetouan’s selection as the 2026 Mediterranean capital of culture and dialogue.
The ministry is staging the event with the Prefecture of Tetouan Province, the Provincial Council and the Urban Commune of Tetouan. Artists from the Kingdom of Morocco, Lebanon, Palestine, Italy and Spain appear on the programme.
Oud meets lute
Khalife’s opening set is meant to give the oud an orchestral reach, in works that celebrate the human being and the homeland. Manfredi joins him on the lute, an instrument whose roots go back to the Renaissance, in what organisers describe as a dialogue between Mediterranean cultures.
Khalife, who sings, composes and plays the oud, is known for setting poems by Palestinian poets to music, among them Mahmoud Darwish’s “Ahinnu ila khubzi ummi” and Samih al-Qasim’s “Muntasib al-qama amshi”. A press meeting with him is also on the festival schedule.
Andalusian music and flamenco
Friday’s programme brings together Moroccan oud player Tariq Banzi and Spanish pianist Jesús Barrio, who organisers said accompanied guitarist Paco de Lucía for many years, joined by Moroccan-American artist Boujemaa Razki.
A second performance features the Souhail group, in which Moroccan oud player Sohail Seghini plays with Gypsy guitarist Miguel Fernández, blending Moroccan-Andalusian music with the flamenco of Granada.
Fifty players to close
Palestinian oud player Nizar Ruhani opens Saturday’s closing night. He is followed by the Moroccan Oud Orchestra, which gathers 50 female and male oud players from every region of the Kingdom, conducted by Fahd Benkiran and coordinated by researcher and artist Muhammad Amin al-Dabi. Organisers said the performance marks the first anniversary of Unity Day.
The festival keeps its tradition of honouring figures of Moroccan oud, paying tribute this year to Sohail Seghini, Muhammad al-Ashrawi and Khaled Najed al-Jdaidi.
A Moroccan calligraphy exhibition titled “Architecture of the Soul”, featuring works by Abdessalam Alloush and Ahmed al-Aboudi, is on show at the Tetouan Centre of Modern Art during the event.
