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The internationally renowned Morgenland Festival Osnabrück will return in summer 2025 with an impressive program.

This year, the festival is all about change: after two decades of the festival's formative artistic direction by founder Michael Dreyer, Syrian clarinetist and composer Kinan Azmeh will take over as guest curator.

Kinan Azmeh: "As a Damascene/ New Yorker who feels at home at the intersections of culture, I felt it would be only natural to draw from the wide artistic expressions that I have been exposed to throughout my artistic life. The 21st edition of Morgenland Festival Osnabrück will focus on artists who feel comfortable in a multitude of identities. These are global musicians who travel seemlessly between genres, categories and geogaphical and cultural homes."

The Morgenland Festival opens with a powerful event on June 29th: The NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, together with Yo-Yo Ma, Kayhan Kalhor and under the direction of Alan Gilbert, will present Kayhan Kalhor's new double concerto “Venus in the Mirror” – a work specially commissioned for the 20th anniversary of the festival in cooperation with the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra and the University Musical Society Ann Arbor/USA.

The festival program presents a magnificent array of international artists, including the American electro-acoustic trio Dawn of Midi, Grammy-winning violinist Johnny Gandelsman, and the pioneering New York string
quartet Brooklyn Rider.

The Syrian oud virtuoso Issam Rafea joins saxophonist Asya Fateyeva for a special duo, while the 94-year-old Franco-Syrian double bassist François Rabbath – a living legend – can be experienced in conversation with Kinan Azmeh and in music.

Further highlights include the Lebanese violinist and composer Layale Chaker, the Sri Lankan-Canadian pianist Dinuk Wijeratne, the Palestinian
musician Christine Zayed (vocals & qanun), the Lebanese jazz pianist Tarek Yamani, the renowned Cello Octet Amsterdam, the Armenian-Canadian

cellist Karen Ouzounian in a duo with the American pianist Lembit Beecher, the Palestinian singer Nai Barghouti, the cellist Jake Charkey, as well as the performances of Kinan Azmeh and Shabnam Parvaresh.

In collaboration with the Osnabrück Youth Choir (conductor: Clemens Breitschaft), the Brooklyn-based composer and sound designer Erdem Helvacioglu is developing a new work that combines European choral music with electronic textures from Istanbul to New York.

On July 11, the Morgenland Festival will conclude with an extraordinary concert by Rami Khalifé and Francesco Tristano. Two grand pianos face each other and unfold a choreographed interplay of sound, space and movement, in which music can be experienced as a sensual form of visual and acoustic encounter.

In addition to the concerts, the festival offers a diverse supporting program with workshops, artist talks and participatory formats.