Aşina – The Sounds of Mesopotamia

About the Event

Mesopotamia, situated between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, is one of the world’s oldest soundscapes. The numerous civilizations of this region share a common musical heritage. In this concert, ancient keys, folk melodies, and improvisations come together, uniting different languages and rhythms into a shared pulse. Turkish, Syrian, Kurdish, and Persian sounds invite us not on a journey into the past, but to an encounter with a living tradition.

Unexpectedly familiar—“aşina” is a word of Persian origin that describes something familiar to us, even if we do not fully know it: a sense of closeness that needs no explanation. The concert series of the same name stands for a new way of listening that recognizes the familiar in the seemingly foreign and brings it closer to us. Aşina connects not through culture, but through shared emotions. Internationally renowned musicians are coming to Berlin for the series, some of them returning after a long absence specifically for these concerts. Time‐honored traditions, artists from the urban scene, and musical forms of expression rarely heard in concert halls come together on stage, giving voice to the music of our time. At the same time, the audience brings together worlds that often merely coexist in everyday life.