WEIMAR | BABYLON

Sadaqa is the Arabic word for »friendship«. The project, initiated by Weimar Jazz Professor, bassist and SWR Jazz Prize-winner Manfred Bründl, was launched successfully at KUNSTFEST 2021. Together with the internationally acclaimed Syrian-Armenian singer Ibrahim Keivo, the Syrian oud virtuoso Mohannad Nasser and the celebrated percussionist Bodek Janke, the quartet spans an arc from the extremely diverse traditional music culture of Syria with its Kurdish, Armenian, Assyrian and Arab influences to jazz, thereby connecting not only the musical language of different cultures and genres, but creating musical encounters between different cultural and linguistic regions. Now, with this concert by Sadaqa in 2022, Weimar meets the Middle East: and here the focus lies on understanding between generations as well as between cultures.

To achieve this, Sadaqa has recruited some local reinforcements: With the award-winning youth choir of the schola cantorum weimar the musicians enter a multi-faceted dialogue with the rich music of the Mesopotamian cultural space that will round off the KUNSTFEST while at the same time opening the ACHAVA Festival Thuringia and the JAZZMEILE THURINGIA. The comprehensive arrangements for choir and ensemble that will be heard here have been written by the oud player Mohannad Nasser.