First European Music Week begins in Riyadh

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Cynthia Queenton, a singer of French-Maltese origin. (eumusicweek.com)
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Arcis Saxophon Quartett band from Germany. (eumusicweek.com)
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Marianna G. & band from Greece. (eumusicweek.com)
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Rembrandt Frerichs Trio band from Netherlands. (eumusicweek.com)
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The First European Music Week kicked off in Riyadh. (eumusicweek.com)
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Updated 14 November 2023
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First European Music Week begins in Riyadh

  • Event is organized in collaboration with the embassies of EU member states, the Saudi Music Commission, and the Saudi Music Hub
  • Performances have so far featured Almanata from Portugal; Louise Tuxen from Denmark; the Arcis Saxophon Quartett from Germany; and France’s Cynthia Queenton

JEDDAH: The first European Music Week, which began in Riyadh on Saturday and runs until Nov. 20 at the Saudi Music Hub, features a diverse array of talented artists.

Performances start at 8 p.m and are free of charge, offering engaging musical experiences throughout the week.

The concerts feature artists from Portugal, Denmark, Spain, Germany, France, Italy, Estonia, Greece, and the Netherlands. 

The event is organized in collaboration with the embassies of EU member states, the Saudi Music Commission, and the Saudi Music Hub.

Performances have so far featured Almanata from Portugal; Louise Tuxen from Denmark; the Arcis Saxophon Quartett from Germany; and France’s Cynthia Queenton.

Wednesday will see Italy’s La Societa dei Concerti di Milano performing, while Marianna G and her band take to the stage on Saturday.

Those attending the event can also take part in two free workshops with the performers, the first with a traditional Estonian folk band and the second hosted by the Rembrandt Frerichs’ trio from the Netherlands.


‘One in a Million’: Syrian refugee tale wows Sundance

Updated 24 January 2026
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‘One in a Million’: Syrian refugee tale wows Sundance

PARK CITY: As a million Syrians fled their country's devastating civil war in 2015, directors Itab Azzam and Jack MacInnes headed to Turkey where they would meet a young girl who encapsulated the contradictions of this enormous migration.

In Ismir, they met Isra'a, a then-11-year-old girl whose family had left Aleppo as bombs rained down on the city, and who would become the subject of their documentary "One In A Million," which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on Friday.

For the next ten years, they followed her and her family's travels through Europe, towards Germany and a new life, where the opportunities and the challenges would almost tear her family apart.

The film is by directors Itab Azzam and Jack MacInnes. (Supplied)

There was "something about Isra'a that sort of felt to us like it encapsulated everything about what was happening there," MacInnes told an audience at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah on Friday.

"The obvious vulnerability of her situation, especially as being a child going through this, but that at the same time, she was an agent.

"She wasn't sitting back, waiting for other people to save her. She was trying to fight, make her own way there."

The documentary mixes fly-on-the-wall footage with sit-down interviews that reveal Isra'a's changing relationship with Germany, with her religion, and with her father.

It is this evolution between father and daughter that provides the emotional backbone to the film, and through which tensions play out over their new-found freedoms in Europe -- something her father struggles to adjust to.

Isra'a, who by the end of the film is a married mother living in Germany, said watching her life on film in the Park City theatre was "beautiful."

And having documentarists follow her every step of the way as she grew had its upsides.

"I felt like this was something very special," she told the audience after the screening. "My friends thought I was famous; it made making friends easier and faster."