Damascus, (SNNA)- One of the main themes of the Morgenland Festival Osnabrück 2008 will be this year’s Culture Capital of the Arab World: Damascus.

“Damascus – Culture Capital of the Arab World” is the official cooperation partner of this year’s Morgenland Festival Osnabrück.

Several programs will focus on the cultural life of Damascus city, which is amongst the oldest inhabited places in the world.

Syrian composers will perform in this annual festival along with films, literary lectures on the Syrian cultural life will also be held.

The festival, which started on Sep. 19, will last till 5 Oct. it is one of the most important events in Europe on the oriental music.

The Morgenland Festival Osnabrück was founded in 2005 and, within a short time, achieved an outstanding reputation amongst the international music festivals.

The Morgenland Festival presents the music culture of the Near and Middle East, from traditional music to avant-garde, from “classical” music to hip-hop.

The festival received extraordinary resonance from both audiences and the press. Newspapers and media from all over the world such as the New York Times and the Hindu Post, the Australian News and the Syria Times carried reports about the Morgenland Festival.

The project grew from a desire to put aside the horror images in the media with positive impressions of a region which boasts an impressively lively culture. Here in this part of the world, people’s knowledge of Arabic and Persian culture is still startlingly scant.

This is surprising, when one considers that this region of the Middle East is one of the most important cradles of  Western culture. The Morgenland Festival would like to impart impressions and knowledge about a culture which is of immense importance for the history of the world.

Ahmad Fathi ZAHRA