Aşina – The Sounds of Mesopotamia

In this concert, ancient modes, folk melodies, and improvisations come together, uniting different languages and rhythms into a shared pulse. Turkish, Syrian, Kurdish, and Persian sounds invite not a journey into the past, but an encounter with a living tradition.

About the new series Unexpectedly Familiar – “aşina” is a word of Persian origin that describes something that is familiar even if people do not fully know it: a feeling 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 supposedly foreign and brings it closer. Aşina connects not through culture, but through shared sensibilities.

Internationally renowned musicians come to Berlin for the series, some of them 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 the present. At the same time, the audience brings together worlds that often merely coexist in everyday life.