In the hope that the Corona pandemic would be over by the summer of 2021 we planned an extensive programme for 2021 entitled “The Music of the Roma – Identity and Projection”. However, by March it had become clear that the difficult circumstances made the realisation of the plans almost impossible. It would have necessitated several hundred days and nights of quarantine, as well as hundreds of PCR tests for the participants. In order to still organize a Festival with live music it was necessary to develop a completely new programme. It was also decided that all concerts would take place as open air events. The courtyard of the Schloss provided a wonderful setting for our high-calibre programme from 9^th to 17^th July.

As in other years the Festival presented only its own productions, whether it was the first encounters between Frederik Köster (trumpet) and Mohannad Nasser (oud), between Wu Wei (sheng) and the Neue Hofkapelle Osnabrück, between Simin Tander (vocals), Rabih Lahoud (vocals) and Florian Weber (piano) or a concert with the Galilee Strings, Saleem Ashkar, Mohannad Nasser and Mevan Younes. Giavanni Weiss brought not only his Quartet, but also the fantastic violinist Sandro Roy and two young trumpet players, Jan Kaiser and Bill Petry.
The German-Iranian actress Neda Rahmanian met with the German-Iranian journalist Natalie Amiri, a meeting accompanied by the Iranian clarinet player Shabnam Parvaresh. This production later was also featured in “Nachtasyl” at the Thalia Theater in Hamburg.
The opening concert of the Festival featured two extraordinary artists: Iva Bittová’s played an impressive performance with voice and violin, Mohammad Reza Mortazawi entranced the audience and rocked the Schloss courtyard with his Persian percussion instruments, the daf and the tombak.
The Festival prologue was a performance by the Syrian singer Dima Orsho and the Osnabrück Symphony Orchestra. Wolf Kerschek arranged Orsho’s music for symphony orchestra and conducted three wonderful concerts. Guests performers at these concerts were Frederik Köster, Manfred Leuchter, Afra Mussawisade and Kinan Azmeh.
The epilogue of the Festival was a fantastic concert in November by the Roma and Sinti Philharmonic Orchestra in the OsnabrückHalle conducted by Riccardo M Sahiti. Guest soloists were Iva Bittová and Roby Lakatos.