Kurdistan

A weekend-festival that celebrates the diversity and vibrancy of Kurdish music, featuring singer Aynur and Kamansh virtuoso Kayhan Kalhor, among others.

Iran and Iraq, Syria and Turkey: Kurdistan’s vital and rich culture stretches over a huge geographic area. Yet it has been existing in exceptional circumstances for a long time. Fragmentation over several countries, exiles throughout the world and censorship and persecution have made Kurdish culture and music resilient and diverse. The Elbphilharmonie is paying tribute to this strength and diversity with a festival of Kurdish music that gives spaces to all Kurdistan’s major issues: the celebration of life in dance and song, and the sorrow caused by repression. The exploration of a common past and an invigorating look to the future.

One of the festival guests is Kurdistan’s leading vocal star, the Alevi singer Aynur, with whom all generations and the worldwide diaspora of the Kurdish people identify. The sense of grief at the atrocities committed by Saddam Hussein is expressed in a composition by Kayhan Kalhor, an Iranian-Kurdish virtuoso on the kamanga. In a second concert, Kalhor appears in an intimate duo with the long-necked lute bağlama played by Erdal Erzincan.

Danûk is the name of a Syrian-Kurdish ensemble whose members fled from the war in Syria. They embark on a journey to forgotten Kurdish songs, inspired by old recordings. The Iranian-Kurdish jazz ensemble Kurdophone has established itself as a voice of Kurdistani exiles in Vienna. And on the last day of the festival, several concerts with a supporting programme are devoted to the cultural wealth of the Dersim region, which is now the province of Tunceli in eastern Turkey.

Supported by Freundeskreis Elbphilharmonie + Laeiszhalle e.V.