whatever it is – it's about people and music.

Cologne-based singer Maria Jonas and Iraqi musician Bassem Hawar (Djoze) met in 2014 at the Cologne Centre for Early Music ZAMUS and decided to form an ensemble:

Sanstierce – بلا بعد ثلاثي , without thirds.

Both are proven specialists in modal music. The Cologne singer is trying to bring back to life the music of the European Middle Ages, which was hardly notated, and the Iraqi's concern is to ensure that Arabic music, which has been handed down from ear to ear, from generation to generation, with its roots in the Middle Ages and its centre in Baghdad, is not lost to the world. Just a few years ago, Western musicians travelled to Arab countries to be close to the original, but today they meet in Cologne...or Berlin, Paris or London. But no longer in Baghdad, Iraq or Syria...

But what kind of music is created when this two musicians from two different worlds meet? Both make music on the basis of their respective modal music cultures and take them further into today. The two worlds merge with each other and yet each remains in his own at the same time. It is a completely contemporary music. Would you call it "cross over"? Probably not. A better term, if you want to call it that at all: free modal music.

Maria Jonas (Cologne) – Singer & Tobairitz
www.maria-jonas.de

Bassem Hawar (Baghdad, Cologne) – Djoze & Composer
www.bassemhawar.com