Sûret | Faces and Images
Sakîna Têyna, June 2026
1 Neyarê Bedewîyê
2 Biyan
3 Jin jiyan Azadî
4 Car Cara
5 Ez son
6 Xewn
7 Bêrîvan
8 Sûret
9 Ti Nêzana
Sakîna Têyna –Gesang
Mahan Mirarab –Gitarre
Dalina Ugarte –Violine
Nora Romannof Schwarzberg –Viola
Ivan Turkalj –CelloMarko Ferlan –Kontrabass
Amir Wahba –Perkussion
Misagh Joolaee –Kamancheh (track 4)
Arrangements & Musikalische Leitung: Mahan Mirarab
Sakîna Têyna: Sûret | Faces and Images
by Sakîna Têyna
Sakîna Têynawas born into a Kurdish Alevite family in the small town of Varto in Turkey. As a teenager she started singing with Turkish choirsand bands, but it wasn’t until she entered university that she became acquainted with Kurdish musical traditions and set out to defy cultural assimilation. In 1991 she joined the Mespotamian Cultural Centre in Istanbul, a proponent of Kurdish culture, as a vocalist. Like many other Kurdish musicians, she was forced to literally go underground to practise her music and soon she had to choose political activism over art.
It wasn’t until Sakîna arrived to Austria as a political refugee in 2006 that she took to singing as a full-time pursuit again. The first fruit of her concentrated creative efforts were released in the form of her first solo album ROYÊ MI.
Sakîna joined forces with pianist Nazê Îşxan and violinist Nurê Dilovanî to form the all-female TRIO MARA, drawing on traditional Kurdish songs mainly sung by and handed down from woman to woman, enrichening the material with Western classical and contemporary approaches. Since 2013 Sakina works the ANADOLU QUARTETT, touring Austria and Germany. On top of all that, Sakîna has established the Vienna-based ensemble “Sakina & Friends” featuring musicians from Iran, Spain, Austria and Turkey. They regularly perform throughout Austria, where Sakina appears on a lot of album projects and concert bills, never tired to support other artists.
“Sûretis the story of a photograph, of a face. A story that also whispers the silenttales of the faces hanging on the walls of almost every home in Kurdistan, orhidden away in the quiet pages of photo albums.Some people visit the living world only briefly -they depart before dawn breaks,before their names are spoken widely, before their faces become etched in thememories of others. There are faces who didn’t yet have the time to make theirmark on the world, but, in the minds of those they left behind, there are countlessmoments, countless connections, countless images. Their incomplete stories castlonger shadows than their years should allow.
For many years, Kurdistan has been a land of premature departures. Each lossdid not only leave a void behind, it also inflicted deep wounds and lasting scars.This album sings the songs of the departed voices lost to the void. Sûret was born out of the mourning of faces fixed in time. Faces that will nevermultiply, faces that will always remain at that age when their images werecaptured.
Nourished by promises made to them, shared memories, hopes thatstill breathe, and a resistance to oppression keep them alive in perpetuity.The purpose of Sûret is to transform the vanished faces into words and melodies.It aims to preserve the diminishing echoes of memory, creating a lasting worldwhere listening can take the place of simply seeing, and hearing can take theplace of silence. Moving between voices, faces, and photographs —traversingbefore and after—this musical exhibition was brought to life through the effortsof many valuable people. Sûret is the result of a long creative process involvingmany friends, their practical help, and their great ideas.“