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On today’s episode of Cafe International, we are joined by qanun virtuoso Maya Youssef. She grew up in Syria and has become one of the world’s leading performers of this 78-stringed instrument that dates back nearly 4000 years. Youssef has also shattered stereotypes, becoming one of the first women to professionally play the qanun, an instrument that has historically been played predominantly by men. Plus, we’ll get a radio workshop on how to play the qanun, and learn what it’s been like for Youssef as she’s been living in London, separated from her family amidst a horrific war and the devastating recent earthquakes.

On this week’s Cafe International, Julian Kytasty talks about the history of the bandura, shows how the instrument is played, and discusses what we can learn from songs written in prior centuries when Ukraine was attacked.

On today’s Cafe International, our guest is Yuriy Gurzhy, a DJ, music producer and writer who grew up in Kharkiv, Ukraine and now lives in Berlin, Germany. We’ll hear about what it was like recording his album, Foxtroty, in Kharkiv in the weeks before Russia started bombing the city – and much of Ukraine. Foxtroty is based on poetry from the Executed Renaissance - a golden age of Ukrainian poetry in the 1920s before Stalin's brutal crackdown in the following decade where many leading poets were sent to the gulag and killed.

This episode of Cafe International features Dan Rosenberg's interview with Yuri Bukovynets from the Hudaki Village Band, discussing the lives of musicians during wartime, and how they’re helping those who are internally displaced and have lost everything due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Today’s Cafe International is devoted to the music of Turkey and Syria – a region devastated by the recent horrific earthquake. On the program, we'll hear songs from Sezen Aksu, the queen of Turkish music, famed ney player Omar Faruk Tekbilek, as well as stars of Syrian music including Lena Chamamyan, Maya Youssef and more.

On today's episode of Cafe International, our series on Syrian music continues with the group, Taraf Syriana. As their name suggests, they perform Syrian and Romani folk music. “Taraf” is the Romani word for musical group. The Domani, the Romani community of Syria, was estimated to be 250,000 before the war. The Domani migrated from India over 1000 years ago, arriving in Persia before eventually settling in Syria. We feature interviews with members of the band, who all attended top conservatories in Syria and Europe, and later immigrated to Montreal, including Omar Abou Afach (viola), and former member of Syria's National Orchestra (1993-2015), Naeem Shanwar (qanun) - a former music professor at the University of Homs in Syria, accordionist Sergiu Popa, cellist Noemy Braun, and vocalist Ayham Abou Ammar.

This week on Cafe International, host Dan Rosenberg interviews singer Lena Chamamyan about creating music in exile. She was born in Damascus, with Syrian and Armenian heritage. When Chamamyan arrived in Paris in 2011 after civil war broke out in Syria, she was already a star, having performed in many of the world’s top concert halls, her videos had millions of views on YouTube, but none of that mattered, as she, like so many Syrians, was defined by her passport.