Marrakech has been resonating since Wednesday evening to the rhythms of the 11th Malhoun Festival, an annual celebration of national song that honors one of the most deeply rooted poetic traditions in Morocco’s cultural memory. Organized by the Cheikh Jilali Amthired Association, founded in 1970, this year’s gathering runs under the banner « The Art of Malhoun in the Spirit of Unity Day: A Nation’s Memory and the Pulse of Belonging, » a theme chosen to mark the first anniversary of Morocco’s Unity Day and to underline the international recognition the art form has earned through its inscription on UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
The opening ceremony drew artists, researchers and culture enthusiasts, and centered on a tribute to scholar and performer Abdelmajid Fniche, honored for his decades of work bridging theatrical research and the Malhoun qasida, alongside contributions spanning theatre, media and training. Visibly moved, Fniche told reporters the recognition carried special weight given his ties to Marrakech, a city long regarded as a reference point for Malhoun thanks to its rich artistic and heritage legacy. He noted that the festival has, since its inception, deliberately paired Malhoun with national song, creating a format that highlights where the two traditions intersect.
Running over four days, from October 21 to 24, the program weaves together musical evenings, theatrical performances, academic research sessions and community outreach, staged across the Abdellah Laroui theatre complex, the digital university library and the Dar Al Birr Wal Ihssane social complex in Marrakech. The opening night featured performances led by Cheikh Hadj Mhammed Lemlahi and artist Mohamed Ouarti, joined by a troupe of munshidin reciting verses drawn from Morocco’s Malhoun repertoire, in an atmosphere steeped in the art form’s long heritage.
Speaking to the Maghreb Arab Press agency, the festival’s artistic director, Anas Lemlahi, said the event has become an unmissable cultural fixture that showcases the poetic, literary and artistic dimensions of Malhoun, an art he described as reflecting the specificities of Moroccan identity through its ties to customs, traditional dress and cuisine, while also chronicling entire chapters of the country’s history. He added that some researchers trace the oldest Malhoun texts back to the Almohad era.
Backed by the Ministry of Youth, Culture and Sports, the Marrakech-Safi regional council and the Marrakech city council, the festival aims, according to organizers, to safeguard this heritage and pass it on to younger generations while cementing national song as a vital current within Moroccan artistic expression.
