Andalusian Music Festival February 14, 2009

This concert opens the Andalusian Music Festival in New York. Andalusian music is the musical and poetic traditions from Medieval southern Spain that have been preserved in Morocco by the descendants of Muslim and Jewish refugees since the Reconquista. It is performed in the form of vocal and instrumental suites ("Nawbat") based on ancient poems of love, pleasure, wine and nature. Al-Ala from Fes, Morocco, featuring Orchestra Otmani, led by Mohammed Otmani (violin, viola, rebab, lute, goblet drum, tambourine and vocal) makes its New York debut.