April 25-26 2025 – Subterranean Changes – Marrakech Edition

 

A public sound and music program in Marrakech, Morocco, 25-26.4.2025
 
An exploration of experimental sound practices and electroacoustic composition in North Africa, bringing together musical creation, deep listening, sound studies and the therapeutic dimensions of sound. These two-day encounters are part of a wider reflection on aurality, sound modernity and the way listening shapes our relationship with the world, led by artist and researcher Gilles Aubry, accompanied in this program by artist and curator Laila Hida.
 
This edition focuses on the work of Moroccan composer Ahmed Essyad, in particular his electroacoustic compositions from 1972-74. Although short-lived in his career, this period remains essential: it reflects his interest in electronic instruments and his desire to reinterrogate North African musical heritage outside the rigid frameworks of ethnomusicology and Western academic institutions. Rejecting any reductive vision of the Maghreb of sound, Essyad seeks neither to transcribe these heritages into the modernist canon nor to fuse East and West. As he puts it: “It’s about opening up an imaginary space where another modernity can exist outside the largely Eurocentric framework of avant-garde music. Synthesis means anticipation, knowledge. I’m becoming increasingly ignorant. I write to discover what I don’t know. Music feeds me, pollinates me.

Participants: Gilles Aubry, Leila Bencharnia, M’Barek Bouhchichi, Chloé Despax, Ahmed Essyad, Laila Hida, Fatima Zahra Lakrissa, Joe Namy

Time and Location
25.4.2025, 19-22h, DADA Art Space, Djema El Fna, Marrakech
26.4.2025, 15-22h, Le 18 Art Space, Marrakech

Free admission