So powerful has the Fès Festival of World Sacred Music proven in fostering communication across cultural and religious divides that the United Nations named it one of seven world events deserving the appellation "Unsung Heroes of Dialogue." Just this year, the Geneva-based Ousseimi Foundation awarded the festival the Ousseimi Prize for Tolerance. The prize was last awarded to Nelson Mandela.

This year, the festival's music component, The Spirit of Fès, ended its second U.S. tour — the first was in 2004 — with a concert in the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco's Kanbar Hall. The performers, who had spent the month touring the country, focused on the sacred music of the three Abrahamic faiths, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, with a generous and satisfying helping of Hindu music thrown in for good measure.

Artistic Director Zeyba Rahman addressed the audience at the start of the evening, and again after intermission. She explained that the performances were offered as a prayer to promote greater tolerance. She dedicated the concert to Daniel Pearl, slain correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, as well as to all journalists who risk their lives to report the truth on what is happening in the Middle East and other parts of the world.

Given that many of the performers joined together in ensemble, you might wonder if their collaborations resembled a huge pot of chicken soup stocked with gefilte fish, falafel, curry, basmati rice, and plain white bread, with a spoonful of black eyed peas and Lord knows what else. The short answer: yes and no. Yet, save for one brief instance, the goulash proved a musical feast for the soul.

The evening began gently, as three of the seated, amplified musicians — Haddad, Sairam, and Tawil — presented a contemporary Tamil lullaby. Written by a poet named Kannadasan, the lullaby was meant to be sung by a father to his newborn child. Sairam may be a woman, but her artistry, complete with hand gestures, immediately transcended gender through its strength, clarity, connectedness, and indisputable beauty of tone. Hellauer, who followed with one of 12th century Christian mystic Hildegard von Bingen's many hymns, may have required far more amplification and reverb than the other musicians (perhaps in part to replicate cathedral acoustics), but her modest, effortlessly produced, pure voice provided a near-perfect dollop of the abbess' chaste Christian piety.

Shifting one country to the west, Edery, Haddad, and Hellauer joined forces on the Galician-Portuguese "Des Oge Mais," the first of the Cantigas de Santa Maria by 11th century Castilian monarch Alfonso X "El Sabio." The contrast between Hellauer's selfless presentation and Edery's far more visceral vocals was one of many musical highlights of the evening. So was Edery's Kochav Tsedek, a Moroccan song written in Hebrew that extols the many virtues of the father Abraham. Supported by Haddad on a version of the tambourine and Tawil on oud and violin, Edery delivered a performance so energetically seductive that the subject matter (for better or worse) seemed of secondary importance.

The same could be said of Sairam's Tillana, a 16th century Sanskrit description of Lord Krishna's dance on the head of the five-headed snake Kalinga, complete with descriptions of Krishna's lush forest, harem of luscious damsels, herds of cows, and a magical way with the flute. Sairam delivered the Indian equivalent of a mesmerizing coloratura showpiece. She may not possess a two-and-a-half-octave range, but her runs, scales, ornaments, embellishments — you name it — were astounding. The program notes identified her as "the most renowned representative of the Carnatic vocal style, which is rooted in the devotional songs and music from southern India's temples where the most authentic forms of the Vedic tradition remain strong." Still performing on a remarkably high level, this veteran performer, known for her collaborations with musicians from other cultures, must be heard.

By contrast, Hellauer's contribution to the final "Rocking Jerusalem" mélange of intertwining songs from Hindu, Christian, and Muslim traditions seemed plain. It's not her fault — any harems that may have been secreted in medieval Christian monasteries would be considered verboten as musical subjects — but it sure made other religions seem more attractive, from a purely visceral standpoint. The reader must pardon a perhaps irreverent observation on the part of a critic who also happens to be an ordained minister, but the contrast between forms and styles left me thinking that, while the medieval Christ and Father may have resided in the purest of heavens, ancient Lord Krishna was the one who really knew how to get down. The gluttonous view of Paradise presented in the conclusion of Mahler's Fourth Symphony, the song "Wir geniessen die himmlischen Freuden" from Des Knaben Wunderhorn, would have made a far better case for Christianity in this context.

After intermission, Haddad delivered a substantial, impressive percussion solo on an assortment of instruments. Then came the Sufi Daqqa Roudania from the town of Taroudant, representing the Sufi tradition, which originated in the eighth century. The all-male ensemble presented five Arabic chants, prayers, and call and responses to God.

The Daqqa serve three main functions: They perform concerts, lead processions through the city for special events, and perform Sufi rituals that often lead participants into trances. The latter have always seemed to me far more involving for those chanting, dancing, and pounding and playing an assortment of instruments than for those trapped in their seats and unable to join in.

Thankfully, the audience broke ranks, frequently clapping along, tapping, and swaying in their seats. Most enjoyable was the one youthful performer who got so caught up in his particular brand of Moroccan-African-influenced movement that he let his sacred head covering fly off without concern.

For the finale, everyone onstage joined in for Sidi Habib/Eli Sh'ma Koli. Described as "a popular Moroccan/Algerian Judeo-Muslim [song] at once secular and sacred," it is sung as a wedding song in both communities. Its melody is also used as a Jewish prayer, as well as a praise song to the Prophet Mohammed. Talk about crossing boundaries.

Somewhere in the middle of the finale, after Aruna Sairam sang "the words of a poet on the southernmost tip of India longing to cross the Indian Ocean to Sri Lanka to visit the temple of the God Muruga," Susan Hellauer sang a line or two from I Am a Poor Wayfaring Stranger. In the context of all this richness, her contribution seemed like the musical equivalent of George W. Bush interrupting a New Age prosperity seminar to ask if anyone had change for the pay phone. Perhaps it's not Hellauer's forte, but surely there must be some Christian equivalent of the ecstatic Sufi, Sephardic, and Hindu musics, which made the point loud and clear that, when we are most deeply involved in the act of praising the Holy One, we are also closest to our essential human oneness and connectedness.

(Jason Victor Serinus writes about music for San Francisco Classical Voice, Opera News, Stereophile, San Francisco Magazine, East Bay Express, and Bay Area Reporter.)

©2006 Jason Victor Serinus, all rights reserved