Salim Fergani comes from a family of artisans and musicians. His grandfather, Hammou Fergani (1884-1972), was a master of the hawzi. Salim was born just before the tragic Algerian war. From the age of 5, he learned the wonderful secrets of the maluf from his predecessors in this difficult social environment. His father, El Hadj Mohammed Tahar Fergani, was his first teacher, and his uncle Zonaoui introduced him to the arbi lute. This training has helped him to better understand the interpretation of ancient poems over traditional melodies, creating his own style and personality. His world tours have given him an international dimension and the nickname “The Troubadour of Constantine”. Salim is a master of all the traditional singing genres: maluf, silsila, hawzi, mahdjúz, ´rúbí, qadriya and zdjúl.

THE PAST WILL RETURN. A MARINE ZEJEL CONSTANTINO AND ANDALUSIAN MUSIC

Classical Arabic music was born in Baghdad during the caliphate of Mahdi Ibn al-Mansur in the year 775. Ziryab brought this music to Spain, where it established itself independently of the Eastern world and a new style developed thanks to the fusion with the music already present in the Iberian Peninsula. Ibn Baya (Avempace, d. 1138) was the true creator of the Arab-Andalusian school, which developed until the fall of Granada in 1492 and is still found throughout the Maghreb in its original form, with some modifications. The Constantinian school inherited Arab-Andalusian music and has a special repertoire due to its historical characteristics: local poets such as Ibn al-Jaluf (15th century), 19th and 20th century masters and the religious brotherhoods that have preserved the muwashshah and the zajel.

Zejel (zadjal, azdjâl) is a poetic genre of the Arabic dialect. The term zejel (zdjal, zdjûl) is also used to refer to a post-classical form of popular music and means “to move, to move to song”. Originally, the singers of zejel (zadjâl, zadjalâ) were non-professionals, successors of the Andalusian troubadours, who sang melodies played with the zuma (shawm) with percussion from the darbuka drum and handclaps, and occasionally with zunûdj (cymbals) and naqarat (a pair of small drums).