Gnawa and World Music Festival 2012 dates are June 2012 (exact dates TBA).

The Gnawa and World Music Festival in Essaouira, Morocco is an annual music festival that celebrates music from all over the globe.

The festival, which takes place every year in June, is one of the most popular music festivals in Africa.

Now in its 15th year, the Gnawa and World Music Festival features 250 Moroccan artists and musicians and 150 musicians from other parts of the world.

In addition to music, the Gnawa and World Music Festival offers artistic and cultural events, as well as conferences and meetings in Essaouira.

Essaouira Music Festival

Rockin’ the Casbah
By STEVE DOUGHERTY

FROM his perch on a rooftop terrace near the crenelated western ramparts of the walled city, a visitor from England watched the sun set in spectacular display over the Atlantic Ocean. As it disappeared on the cloudless horizon, the sun’s rays cast a golden glow on a rising crescent moon decorated on the eve of the summer solstice by a silvery alignment of planets and stars.

“Nice touch, that,” quipped Bill Corbett, a 39-year-old London photographer, D.J. and music fanatic whose visit to Essaouira, an exotic, wind- and sun-swept Moroccan city on the northwest coast of Africa, for the 10th-annual Gnawa and World Music Festival, would prove a transforming experience. “This really is a midsummer night’s dream.”

continued on nytimes.com