The Morgenland Festival Osnabrück has dedicated itself since 2005 to the fascinating music culture of the Near and Middle East, from traditional music to classic and avant-garde, jazz and rock. With its focus on a region which immediately conjures up positive and negative cliché images, the Festival has set itself the goal of counteracting these images with authentic ones. The Festival gives the audience and its guests the opportunity to encounter one another as something complex – sometimes related, sometimes inspirationally alien. The Morgenland Festival Osnabrück has realized Choir and Orchestra projects in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkey. In 2013 it invited some 65 musicians from 9 countries to Kurdistan, Iraq for a Festival lasting several days with performances in Erbil and Sulaimaniya. Other highlights of the Festival were the first concert in Iran by a western symphony orchestra since 1979 or the first performance ever in Iran of Bach's St. John Passion.