Zülfü Livaneli is regarded as an icon and a “Renaissance artist”: for 60 years, the multi-award-winning writer, composer, singer, and film director has shaped Turkey’s collective memory. Through his works and his commitment to peace and human rights, he bridges generations and gives them a voice of hope, longing, and resistance. With the Rumi Suite, Livaneli pays tribute to the timeless words of the Persian Sufi mystic Rumi. In an adapted version of the suite, the German premiere—together with Livaneli’s songs, which enjoy cult status and are sung worldwide in numerous languages—marks the opening of the new concert series “Aşina.”

About our new series

 Unexpectedly familiar – “aşina” is a word of Persian origin that describes something familiar to us, even if we do not fully understand 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 supposedly foreign and brings it closer to us. 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-honoured 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.