Founded in 2000, Irtijal is currently the oldest music festival of Beirut city. Its wide musical range includes experimental music, free jazz, free improvisation, contemporary music, noise and free rock as well as other forms of innovative music-making.

In 2021, in collaboration with our partners at hcmf//, we launched ISTIMRAR, our first series of COMMISSIONED WORKS addressed to Lebanese musicians. The purpose of this series is to keep the creativity of Lebanese musicians alive and robust and to inject some stimulation into the Lebanese musical sector as a whole.

TERDAD 2021

From July 2-4, 2021, Irtijal proudly took part in TERDAD 2021 Festival in Beirut. Under the auspices of UNESCO's "Li Beirut" initiative for reviving the cultural sector in Beirut, TERDAD consisted of 3 days of public performances and workshops, organized in...

Space 21 “Broken Resonance”, by Moment Duo

Independent cultural project Space 21 in Kurdistan has launched its Bandcamp page - with an album of free improvisation entitled "Broken Resonance", by Moment Duo (Khabat Abas & Hardi Kurda). Listen to it...

Voice Affairs ECLAT Festival Stuttgart

This week is the premiere of Voice Affairs in Stuttgart’s ECLAT Festival / Musik der Jahrhunderte. The Stuttgarter NeueVocalsolisten will be presenting work by Aya Metwalli, Youmna Saba, Raed Yassin & Cynthia Zaven. The festival program also includes a concert by...

Irtijal at CTM’s 2021 online edition

Last October, an unprecedented team-up between Irtijal, Ruptured, Frequent Defect, The Ballroom Blitz, and Tunefork Studios yielded a day-long music marathon + fundraiser in Beirut, orchestrated by our friends Morphine Records in Berlin. 5 of these superb performances...

Unbound Listening #1

As part of our continued relationship with HCMF - Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, this year's online edition of Hcmf will feature a talk between Sharif Sehnaoui, Rabih Beaini, Rénata Sabella, and Fadi Tabbal, followed by live performances from Aya Metwalli...

Irtijal’20 – XXth International Festival of Experimental Music in Lebanon

Irtijal Festival’s home city of #Beirut has undergone, in the past year alone, the steady collapse of its economic and banking sectors, waves of revolutionary protests, a deadly criminal blast that devastated entire neighborhoods, and, last but not least, renewed and...

Marathon on the day of the revolution

We are taking part in Morphine Records' exceptional 17-hour fundraising event this coming Sunday, alongside Ruptured, Tunefork Studios, Frequent Defect, and The Ballroom Blitz. Featuring an all-star Lebanese line-up playing live from The Ballroom BlitzThe Lebanese...