The Common Routes of Euro-Mediterranean Music – CREMM project, launched at the very
first Babel Sound in 2009, invites professional musicians from different cultures to a short
artistic residency to create and eventually perform a novel musical programme on the Babel
Sound Festival stage.
This year, the CREMM participants – who have been selected from more than 100 applicants
in the open call, and who are meeting each other here for the first time – are working in 3
collaborations from Monday to Friday, writing, arranging and rehearsing music during the
daytime, creating their own unique sound and repertoire, which they present in 3 concerts on
the last two nights of the Festival.
The CREMM programme provides an exceptional opportunity for these artists to meet and
play together with more than a hundred musicians in an international and multicultural
environment, extend their musical horizons and professional network, and even form new
bands. Several CREMM participants in previous years have started new musical projects
together after the residency, and many of them have been invited back to Babel Sound with
their new formations, or even just solo, to find new collaborators yet again.
Well-known artists like Manou Gallo, Shlomo Bar, Yasser Haj Youssef, Manuel Hermia,
Omri Mor and others from the field of world music, jazz, blues and traditional music have
also participated in this programme, sharing the unique experience.