Bio

Khabat Abas is an experimental and transgressive cellist, improviser, artist and composer from Kurdistan-Iraq who likes to break the rules; she experiments with the cello structurally and musically, improvising, composing, doing a sound installation, creating diverse cellos, and using her own body. The silenced stories of Women inspire her. She makes it to be heard through her compositions, using diverse materials to protest against oppressions rooted in social and political systems. She questions what is out of bounds, raising the possibilities of sounds that contrast with traditional musical values and cannot be controlled

Khabat has performed with various ensembles, including the Iraqi National Symphony Orchestra, Sulaymaniyah string orchestra, Gothenburg Academic Symphony Orchestra, and the Non-Ensemble for experimental music in Sweden, London Improvisation Orchestra and ONe_Orchestra New.  She has also collaborated with curators, artists and musicians in Kurdistan-Iraq, Sweden, Germany, and the UK. Aba’s last piece for electro-acoustic cello was performed in Slemani-Kurdistan as a part of the Global Listening Biennial 2021. She also performed during the Space21 festival in Iraq Kurdistan 2021, the Winter sound festival in Canterbury 2022 and the Borderline Festival Athens 2022, and she participated in the project  (Abandoned space) collaboration between the Sonorities festival in Belfast and Space21 festival in Kurdistan and her composition played in Klangwerkstatt, Festival for New Music in Berlin and Space21 festival n Kurdistan and London new jazz festival in London. She is co-founder of Duo Moment; together with Hardi Kurda, they released two albums, “Broken Resonance” on Space21 Label and “Illegal Performance” at Café Oto 2021. She has been awarded a grant from Salam culture house in Iraqi Kurdistan and the Swedish art council community, and Stim Forward Fund in Sweden.