It is the most extensive project that the Morgenland Festival has realized in its history: The music theatre piece “Songs for Days to Come” by the Syrian composer and clarinettist Kinan Azmeh. He has been associated with the Festival since 2010 and, as he says himself, he has created more music here than in his home city of Damascus or his adopted home New York.

His latest work is not an opera in the traditional sense, but rather a multi-layered mosaic of music, poetry and soundscapes for soloists, actors, chorus and orchestra. Based on poems by contemporary Syrian lyricists, which have been formed into a libretto by Liwaa Yazji and Mohammad Abou Laban, it addresses the recent history of Syria, the civil war, which has been raging since 2011 and worldwide refugee movements. However, as Azmeh explains, at its core it is not as a tragedy, but “sows the seeds for what people will sing about in the future. It is a project which is inspired by Syria, but which appeals to the whole world.”

Further performances will take place on the 4^th, 10^th and 22^nd of June as well as the 1^st, 3^rd and 8^th of July 2022.

"Songs for Days to Come" is a coproduction with the Theater Osnabrück. The compositional commission is sponsored by the Ernst von Siemens Arts Foundation.