National Geographic Music (National Geographic)

"I call it serendipity," said Hamid Mernissi of Sarah Tours, our guide for a two-bus caravan of musicians and music-lovers that became part of the Yuval Ron ensemble's Moroccan tour. Hamid was referring to a sequence of events that led him to meet Yuval, a US-based Israeli composer and oud (lute) player whose invitation to the annual Sacred Music Festival in Fes provided the initial impetus for this village-on-wheels. For Ron, who has been researching Moroccan music for years, this invitation was a golden opportunity to realize an old dream of taking his multi-ethnic ensemble and its messages of coexistence to a Muslim country. "I wanted a tour where we are interacting with local musicians," he said. "So I connected with Hamid, a great tour guide, a Sufi, and an expert on the different musical styles of Morocco. I didn't want museums and monuments. I wanted to go to people's homes, to meet musicians."

Our tour began in Volubilis, an important archeological site built in the days of the Roman Empire and continuously peopled until the 18th century. It had served as the location from which Judaism, Christianity and Islam were introduced to the Berber tribes of the area, and provided a symbolic entry to Morocco for Yuval's interfaith entourage. Our hotel balcony opened onto a vista of sloping hills, squared fields with hues of gold and silver-green, and in the distance, the gates of the ancient site. In the setting sun, a drum-and-dance session soon materialized around the hotel pool. From here on drums would be the journey's soundtrack, on-and-off the bus. Later this multinational group, whose ages ranged from four to retired, gathered to sing happy birthday to Yuval's baby, who turned one year old on his first day in Morocco. Shortly a group of white-clad Sufis blowing harsh ghetas (shawms), beating drums and dancing, paraded through our hotel dining room, their sound bouncing off the walls and lifting our energy.

Volubilis' neighboring town is Mulay Idriss [pictured], named after the saint who founded it in the 8th century. During his short reign, Idriss managed to convince local Berber tribes to accept Islam and his spiritual guidance; his son was greatly responsible for establishing Islam and a unified identity for the many tribes of Morocco. It has since been an important Sufi center of learning and pilgrimage. The town's white stucco buildings, blue doorways and minarets nestled along the mountain curves as though they had always been a part of it.

In the evening we gathered to sit on mats and pillows on the rooftop of a local bed-and-breakfast under open skies, where an augmented group of the previous night's Sufis, members of the Handushi tariqa, or Sufi brotherhood, joined us. We were there to sing, dance, or simply absorb the hadra, or "presence" - a ritual of remembrance, praise and dance that often leads to trance. The aggressive drumming and geometric dance moves soon animated our entire group. Several women joined our hostess in an interior space that opened to the rooftop, where she showed us the dance-steps. Outside, the ensemble musicians were trying to absorb the counterintuitive 5/8 rhythms of the music. For those of us not induced into trance, the mint tea, cookies, sprinkled orange blossom perfume, diwans and copper-tray seating style of the home's interior, provided alternative entertainment.

Next day, as our bus climbed the Atlas Mountains, the Mediterranean scenery gave way to cedars and jagged mountain ridges. In Midelt, the last Berber city en-route, the snow-capped peaks of the high Atlas Mountains provided a majestic backdrop for our last stop before our descent east. On this side of the Atlases the terrain became dry, the adobe and blue-tile architecture evoking fairy tale sand castles. By the time we arrived in Erfoud night had fallen, and we were exhausted. "Just take a tooth brush and a sturdy pair of pants," informed us our trusted guide. "You're about to go on an adventure." We were transferred onto land rovers and were thrown around by the rocky terrain for what was a short distance, but felt like hours. When we arrived it was pitch dark. We descended the vehicles, only to be told by men dressed in turbans and blue robes which camel in the caravan each one of us should get on.

After what seemed like hours to our sore butts, our carvan arrived at the Merzouga dunes camp. Dinner was served by our blue-robed hosts to candlelight. Hassan, one of our hosts said, "come see the sleeping camels," leading me by the hand. He showed me his camel Hermillo, who stood out from the rest for his off-white coloring. "We also have a camel named after Jimi Hendrix and one called Marley in this caravan," said Hassan. Until 12 years ago, Hassan's family, which belonged to a Berber tribe that lived along the border of Algeria, lived a completely nomadic life. They had to settle down when with the expansion of the Sahara desert the food sources for their livestock dwindled. "Which lifestyle do you like better?" I asked. "This is good," he answered. "Life in the tent can be so hard. But the problem is that this work is only available to us two months out of the year, when the tourists can tolerate the weather."

Next morning I stumbled out of my tent to the sound of our dawn wakeup drum-roll. My ears, eyes, hair, mouth, and every pore in my body felt gritty with sand. But the sights around us, revealed for the first time, were an astounding surprise. Rippled sand dunes, carved by the wind, rose high all around us, creating a bas-relief against the sky. We climbed one of the dunes to watch the sunrise, a huge ball of fire that rose from behind the dunes, changing their color from gold, to orange, to red. Yoga practitioners were silhouetted in sun-solute position against the rising sun. Back to Erfoud, the three-hour ride on Jimi Hendrix, my camel for the morning, seemed like a breeze in comparison with our nighttime journey. I could see when we were climbing up or down, and could understand what the camel drivers, who kept running ahead to scope the terrain, were instructing the camels to do. Riding sidesaddle seemed the best way to avoid the aches of the night before.

That evening we went to visit gnawa musicians in their Errachidia home. The gnawas are descendents of slaves brought to Morocco centuries ago, and their music, brought with them from sub-Saharan Africa, is the cathartic engine for healing trance ceremonies. It is played on large, shoulder-strung drums, a 3 string guitar called guimbri, and metal clappers called qarqaba. The room we packed our two-busloads into was small, enclosed by mud-baked walls and a packed earth floor, decorated with photos and paintings of the Zaid family's ancestral musical lineage. If the air was stifling, it was soon forgotten; the moment the white robed musicians began playing their lilting 6/8 rhythms, singing haunting pentatonic melodies call-and-response style, and dancing in circular little steps, a hush fell over the room. Ears tuned to the droning bass lines and the subtly shifting synchronicity of vocals and percussion, eyes followed the movements of the dancers. Pretty soon everyone was on the feet, some dancing with reserve, others with total abandon. "They were young but they were taking part in it with every part of the being," said Dror, guest percussionist on the tour, the next day. "Each one was doing a very simple rhythm. But together it was very intricate, it had shapes between the beats, between the notes. And when the dancers came in, the choreography was very mellow, very subtle, very expressive. This was the dance from within."

Th next day we ventured northwest into the Todra Valley. Berbers have peopled this valley for 75,000 years, Hamid informed us. Through trade caravans, other communities joined them. For the past 3000 years, until Morocco's independence in 1956, which precipitated the Jewish exodus from Morocco, Berbers and Jews lived side by side. The Jews, who knew the customs of the local tribes, often served as mediators. In 1960, approximately 175,000 Jews left the valley, leaving a void in local trade and craftsmanship. As we were driving along the valley, their mud-baked homes, appearing as through carved out of the mountains, still dotted the Atlas foothills, overlooking the date-groves below. Apparently, many had entrusted the keys to their homes with their Muslim neighbors, who are holding them in safekeeping to this day.

When we stopped to lunch at the Todra Gorge, a narrow body of water flanked by towering rocks, Yuval and his ensemble played for us the first song they had recorded together: "Todra Village". Written by Jewish Moroccans who immigrated to Israel, the song speaks of a local ritual now forgotten. At five years of age, a young boy would be crowned with flowers and taken to the synagogue, where he would be presented with a wooden board on which the letters of the alphabet were painted with honey. The child would then be asked to lick the honey, a ritual signifying his initiation into the world of letters.

The road to Marrakech goes through Tizin' Tishka, a 11,000 feet pass in the Atlas mountains, and a dramatic view of rugged terrain, where the desert shifts back to lush evergreens. In Marrakech, we visited a restaurant that serves Moroccan food and Jewish-Andalusian musical entertainment. As often is the case in Morocco, the restaurant's unassuming façade belied its plush interior of floor-to-ceiling tiles, plaster engravings, ornate arches, and velvet upholstery. The band consisted of a singer whose tenor voice wove the intricate melodies with cantorial agility as he was accompanying himself on the riq (tambourine), joined by an oud and a darbukka (hourglass drum). A bellydancer balancing a tray covered with burning candles on her head, snaked her way around the tables. Members of the band and the Israeli contingency in our posse recognized the songs and joined in the fun. Smadar Levi, one of the Yuval Ron ensemble's two singers, is of Moroccan extraction, and had grown up singing these songs in many a family hafla. She joined the singing, and as she began exchanging leads with the Andalusians' singer, the energy level at the restaurant transformed. The ensemble's percussionists pulled out their instruments, and Yuval joined with his oud. The evening ended with Smadar's passionate dedication of "Mama L'Aziza," an old mother's praise-song to Jaouad, one of our tour guides who had recently lost his mother, to the backing of both local musicians and Yuval's ensemble. Even the restaurant workers, who had been trying to close the place for the night, joined the audience. This brought tears not only to Jaouad's eyes. When she finished, Jaouad kissed her on both cheeks.

Next evening we headed to the estate of the Kadiri family, an important Sufi family who had invited Yuval's ensemble to perform to a host of Marrakech dignitaries. If the interior of the palace was exquisite, the garden it opened to felt like a scene from The Arabian Nights. Thousands of candles lit the lawn and domed roofs, creating an otherwordly aura as their flames breathed with the nighttime breeze. The evening turned into an odd mixture of Yuval's sincere interfaith repertoire, a disco DJ, buttoned-up dignitaries, young jetsetters, and Yuval's entourage, all trying to balance themselves between the distinguished and the frivolous. One of the most enchanting moments was when Hamid discovered Francoise Atlan, a Sepharadic-Jewish singer and ethnomusicologist, among the crowd. She sang two songs for us backed by the ensemble's instrumentalists, and her sweet soprano voice and passionate delivery rendered the place and the moment as illuminating as the candles outside.

En route to Fes next day I was thinking about all that has happened in six short days. It was best encapsulated by one of Hamid's pearls, imparted to us on our first day: "Make the world your classroom and every person your teacher."