About us
In 2026, Shabnam Parvaresh takes over the artistic direction of the Morgenland Festival Osnabrück from the festival’s founder and artistic director Michael Dreyer, continuing his vision of bringing people together through music. She sees the festival as a stage for the music of tomorrow – with the courage to explore the unknown and the desire to shape the future together. The festival creates a space of resonance where people meet and, through dialogue, develop a new shared language. In this context, the term “Morgenland” is not understood in a geographical sense, but as a creative impulse for musical curiosity and new beginnings.
For her first edition as artistic director, she places a focus on voices of the diaspora: multifaceted artistic positions that reflect multiple belongings, memories, pain and hope, as well as biographical upheavals and turning points in their work, demonstrating how change and disruption can be transformed into creative force. These positions also reflect Parvaresh’s own biography: in 2013 she left Iran to study music in Germany. Since then, she has established herself as a freelance artist and curator.
Since its founding in 2005 by former festival director Michael Dreyer, the Morgenland Festival Osnabrück has been dedicated to the diverse musical cultures of the Middle East. From traditional music to avant-garde, jazz and rock, it has showcased the rich musical diversity of a region that is often reduced in public perception to crises and conflicts.
The festival has developed into one of the leading platforms for intercultural dialogue and has realized choir and orchestral projects in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Lebanon, Turkey, Kyrgyzstan and the Netherlands. In 2013 it invited 65 musicians from nine countries to a multi-day guest performance in Erbil and Sulaymaniyah in Kurdistan/Iraq. The first performance of a Western symphony orchestra in Iran after 1979 and the Iranian premiere of Bach’s St John Passion were among the further highlights in the festival’s history.
Extensive international media coverage (BBC, CNN, ARTE, 3sat, ARD, Der Spiegel, Stern, FAZ, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Tehran Times, Hindu Post, Syria Times), as well as annual attendance rates of close to 100%, testify to the festival’s outstanding reputation.
About Artistic Director Shabnam Parvaresh
Shabnam Parvaresh is a clarinetist, visual artist and curator from Tehran. After studying visual arts and taking private clarinet lessons, she performed with the Tehran Symphony Orchestra. In 2013 she moved to Germany to study jazz clarinet in Osnabrück. Her music combines Persian influences with electronics, improvisation and jazz.
In 2020 she founded the Sheen Trio, whose second album Transitory was released in January 2026 on the Swiss label Unit Records. She performs nationally and internationally – as a solo artist, bandleader and in projects such as Kind by Jan Klare and Wearing Words by Emily Wittbrodt – and has appeared at festivals including Cologne Jazzweek, Winterjazz Köln, the Moers Festival, Leipziger Jazztage, Herzberg Festival and the Bass Clarinet Festival (NL).
She also founded the concert series Klangfenster at hase29. From 2026 onwards, she will serve as the artistic director of the Morgenland Festival Osnabrück. Her works as a visual artist have been presented in solo exhibitions in Tehran, Osnabrück and the United Arab Emirates, and in 2022 she was nominated for the Osnabrück Art Prize.
