Western music isn't the only genre with transformative potential. Orrin Judd has an article about the Fez Festival of Sacred Music in Cassablanca, Morocco - and how it's now "going on the road" as an international tour of sorts. Since the King of Morocco has one of the best claims in the Islamic world to legitimate succession from the Prophet Mohammed, this is good news indeed:

"Fez native and Sufi scholar Faouzi Skali first initiated a film festival in the wake of the first Gulf war. He dubbed it Desert Colloquium, after Desert Storm. "It was a modest response," he told me over mint tea in Fez last year, "and it has kept on evolving." What it evolved into is the current Fez Festival of Sacred Music. "Music seemed more elemental," he explained, "and it got around barriers of language."

The Moroccan festival has included Buddhist and Native American music, but its focus remains the unity of the three Abrahamic traditions: Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. And for the past three years, among the festival's most resonant sounds has been people simply talking."

Thanks to uber-reader Mike Daley for the heads-up.