After celebrating the 15th Festival Edition in 2019 with many wonderful artists, all of whom have been closely associated with the Festival over the years, we turned our attention in 2020 to the Balkans. Once again, Morgenland presented a musical view of the East, without any of the usual clichés. It seems that “Orient” and “Balkans” suffer the same fate.
Just like the Near East, the Balkans is characterised by multi-faceted ethnical and cultural influences and proves itself to be the somewhat mysterious face of Europe. Influenced by the Byzantine Empire and an over 400 year membership of the Ottoman Empire, as well as by the music of the Sephardim and the Roma, the Balkans is a veritable crossroads of music from the East and the West. Thus, the Festival programme led us on an adventurous journey of discovery to seldom-heard musical gems: from Orthodox chants to Bulgarian wedding music, from the music of the Roma and Sephardim from Moldavia to the ancient songs of Serbia.

Due to the Corona pandemic it was not possible to present a live edition of the Morgenland Festival Osnabrück 2020. Some of the planned concerts were, however, available in digital form. The Morgenland Online Edition took place from 18th to 27th June 2020 on the Festival’s YouTube Channel. Musicians recorded their music in their home countries and sent about 85GB of audio and video material. These recordings were broadcast in six episodes, which reached an audience of over 80,000 people. Deutschlandfunk Kultur, the NDR and the Spanish station Radio Nacional transmitted many hours of the concert recordings.
These contributions from Sarajevo, Belgrade, Thrace, Budapest and Thessaloniki are still available on the Festival’s YouTube channel.