Café Kaváfis – Club Classique

What to expect

Café Kaváfis is a musical and poetic journey through the centuries-old history of the Mediterranean and an ode to the traveller, led by writer and storyteller Abdelkader Benali and violinist and theatre maker Myrthe Helder.

With musicians from Orchestre Partout, an ensemble of musicians with a refugee background, they play classical music, Turkish and Sufi melodies, Cretan sounds, Malouf, flamenco and Arabic maqam.

Musicians from Genoa, Aleppo, Tangier, Crete, Amsterdam, Granada and Beirut bring stories about war, love, mass tourism, old civilisations, longing and uncertain futures.

In Café Kaváfis, travellers, traders, tourists, musicians, businesspeople, refugees and lovers come and go, nobody asks what you come to do, and arriving and leaving feels natural.

• A man writes poems in the café.
• Arak flows as the musicians play.
• The music crosses borders and centuries.
• Club Classique plays festivals, halls, meadows and theatres.
• East and West meet in the music.
• Benali writes about identity, migration and culture.
• Earlier work: Een Nacht met Sjahrazade.