"The Music Day is a traditional festival that has been celebrated since 1982. We have been marking this day for several years in the Kurdistan Region as well. We are very pleased to have been joined by Kurdish singers in this year's festival too," Yann Braem, consul general of France in Erbil, told Rudaw.
World Music Day was started by Jack Lang, then France’s minister of culture, in Paris in 1982.
Today, World Music Day is celebrated in 120 countries around the world, officially taking place on June 21.
"To mark Music Day, we have invited a music group. In previous years, we used to invite French music groups to mark this day, but for this year, we decided to invite Kurdish singers to celebrate this day," said Dashti Omer, head of the culture department at the French Institute in the Kurdistan Region.
Established in 2009, the French Institute in Erbil is a cultural and language learning outlet for nationals and expats in the Kurdistan Region. The institute has an exhibition hall, a library, and a language center for French, Kurdish, and Arabic.
Kurdish singers and music lovers who attended the World Music Day performance spoke highly of the French event.
"This concert was very important for me. I was very pleased to have been selected by the French Institute to perform, as a young woman," said Helan Star, a Kurdish singer.
"They trusted me that I could sing French songs. It is indeed a difficult job. Thanks be to God, everything went too well. We had an amazing mixture of French, English, and Kurdish songs,” she added.
The Kurdistan Region and France have enjoyed good ties for decades. France was one of the first countries to open a consulate in the Kurdish capital after the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003. It played a critical role in helping Kurds both in Iraq and Syria in the war against the Islamic State (ISIS), supplying arms and training to Kurdish forces in both countries.
