Interviewed by Maria Nadolu, New Orleans
Between two planes en route to the East-West encounters, we meet Mahmoud Chouki, just for an interview. The time to get carried away by musical and humanist waves, from Morocco to New Orleans.
Mahmoud Chouki, or simply Mood, is known by many people as the guitarist and composer who ignited the concerts and clubs of Marrakech, Rabat and Casablanca. His compositions and achievements are a fusion of world music, a sound isthmus between East and West. If his love affair with the guitar begins very early, when he was 8 years old, his enthusiasm remains somehow that of a child, always looking; he explodes while playing.
Today, based in New Orleans, Disneyland musicians, he travels the world with his guitar exploring artistic tracks solo or collaborations as the time of Mahmoud and Friends, Orient Occident, or Mood & Lands.
Since 2012, the Rencontres Orient-Occident, at Château Mercier in Switzerland, is a fixed date in its agenda. It is a space of sharing, where we invoke the living and create together of the Mediterranean, beyond proselytism and political populism, targeting all humanistic levels, surfing on music, literature, history, art , philosophy etc. Derived from the fascination for the Mediterranean by René Pierre Antille, director of Château Mercier and founder of the meetings, they bring together more and more enthusiasts. Mood, as artistic director, confederates the international musicians, who arrive there, to create an artistic unity manifested at the time of a concert, following a week of residence and sharing.
Read Maria Nadolu’s interview with Mahmoud Chouki