Road to Erbil

Multiphonics Festival 2024

In 2022 and 2023, the Goethe-Institut Iraq realised a series of exchange projects with German and French musicians in Erbil in northern Iraq together with the local Institut Francais. During stays of several weeks in the cities of Erbil and Mosul, the guests met Kurdish musicians and worked together to develop a concert repertoire, which was performed at various festivals and on different occasions. Traditional themes from Kurdish-influenced northern Iraq will also be heard in joint arrangements by the musicians involved. The combination of jazz rhythm section and western woodwind instruments with traditional instruments such as the Iraqi djoze, the frame drum daf, the saz and the ney, as well as the encounter of vocal styles from East and West, promises a sound experience beyond the usual genre boundaries. The programme leaves room for the musicians to improvise together, intensifying the musical encounter between the German and Iraqi musicians.

multiphonics-festival.com/