The Festival was opened by the first concert of the Tehran Symphony Orchestra in Germany. Under the baton of Nader Mashayekhi the orchestra played works by Riahi, Mashayekhi, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky and Zappa. Daniel Barenboim spontaneously offered the Staatsoper Unter den Linden as the venue for a further concert. Deutschlandradio Kultur broadcast the concert in Osnabrück. A live recording of the concert made by Deutschlandradio Kultur is also available on CD. Further highlights were concerts by the Afghani singer Farhad Darya, by Rabih Abou-Khalil, Midori with the Osnabrück Symphony Orchestra and its conductor Hermann Bäumer, the Iranian Maqam singer Farida Muhammad Ali, and the Egyptian violinist Abdo Dagher.