The Sacred World Music Festival is the biggest festival in Fez and is held annually in June or July. The city is besieged by music lovers and a fantastic cross-section of global folk and accommodation fills to maximum capacity. Concerts are performed in venues across the city, notably at Dar Batha Museum, as well as at Volubilis.

The festival was founded in 1994 by the Moroccan scholar Faouzi Skali and for a week Fez devotes itself to sacred musical traditions from all over the world. Well-known performers such as Ravi Shanhar, Youssou N’Dour and Salif Keita are heard as well as less known but equally intriguing strands such as Harlem Gospel, Sufi songs, Armenian chanting, Japanese Noh Theatre, Tibetan acapella and Indonesian Gamelan.

The event also includes a forum sponsored by the World Bank which is attended by politicians, academics and religious leaders under the auspices of ‘Giving Soul to Globalisation’.