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At the new PANTOPIA OPEN STAGE, we want to give young, up-and-coming and exciting musicians the chance to present themselves to the audience in short concerts.
Fully committed to our PANTOPIA idea, we support a wide variety of artists in their search for transtraditional, musical utopias far removed from genre pigeonholes and want to use the OPEN STAGE to open up new spaces.
In this edition on May 25 from 2 to 6 p.m., you can experience four young musicians with formats that couldn’t be more diverse.
Khalil Ahmad Yousofie is a well-known pop singer and composer from Herat, Afghanistan. Music and art were his life; he performed in Iran and Afghanistan together with the most famous artists from both countries, sang, played guitar and keyboard.
After the Taliban took power, he was no longer able to practise freely, which affected him greatly. It felt like he was living in prison. With the help of Artists at Risk (AR), he came to Europe and now to Berlin. His first appearance in Germany was at the PANTOPIA Festival.
Avedis Neehus (*1998) is a German-Argentine-Armenian physicist and musician. He learned khalil (a type of zither) from the Egyptian qanunist Hanan El-Shemouty in Berlin.
Avedis mainly plays improvisations based on the Taksim tradition. In recent years, he has produced music that has been used in videos for the Houshamadyan project, a digital platform dedicated to Armenian life and culture in the Ottoman Empire.
Nilgün Özer, who grew up in the mountains on the Black Sea and now lives in Berlin, is a versatile artist from Turkey. Originally attracted to the visual arts, she discovered her musical talent as a soloist in the school choir and as a flautist. Her journey as a painter, designer, composer, singer and producer began during her school years when she taught herself to play the guitar with the help of online tutorials.
Her artistic expression reflects her commitment to exploring her roots and pushing boundaries in the visual arts and music.
Bashar Al-Darwish is a multidisciplinary artist with a broad musical orientation who fuses Western classical music with Arabic melodies. He skillfully uses various instruments and modulation effects to create a unique sound.
Although primarily a musician, Bashar also explores the visual arts and occasionally incorporates them into his performances to create an extra layer of interaction. His work offers a unique experience through the seamless and fascinating combination of sound and visual elements.