Newroz (or Nowruz, depending on who’s celebrating) is a start-of-spring holiday marking the beginning of the new year. It’s celebrated across several cultures, but here in Nashville, it is most associated with our local Kurdish community, the largest in the nation.
Newroz has technically come and gone. It was on March 21, the spring equinox. But in Nashville, the celebrations didn’t end Night 1.
For this week’s What Where When-sday, I sat down with WPLN’s Rose Gilbert, our reporter on all things Kurdish, to talk about Newroz — and why the celebrating has continued this year.
A Kurdish Newroz celebration looks like a big, often outdoor party — which is why the last and biggest one isn’t taking place until April 13. (It was scheduled for the 6th originally, but has been postponed due to the weather.) That one is hosted by the Tennessee Kurdish Community Council, one of the older Kurdish groups in town.
The photo above is from Rose’s time there last year.
“It was beautiful. It had the fire. It had stages with music. It had people dancing,” she told me. “Everybody’s kind of picnicking. A lot of people had brought food to grill with their family. Kids were running around and playing tag and soccer.”
Rose explained to me how musicians actually travel from all over the country — and even the world — to be at celebrations here in Nashville. We saw that with Farqin Azad, a Kurdish musician who performed at Plaza Mariachi’s Newroz event. It was hosted by a Turkish-Kurdish group, which is a recent thing actually. (The biggest and most established part of Nashville’s Kurdish community is from northern Iraq, but in recent years, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic, there’s been a big uptick in people coming from Turkey.)
Another layer this year: Ramadan. The month-long observance just ended, but for Nashville Kurds, many of whom are practicing Muslims, the more subdued time coincided this year with the traditionally celebratory equinox event.
“You know, some people still celebrated in late March closer to the actual date, just depends on their personal relationship with their faith and and what feels right,” Rose explained.
And she pointed out, that Plaza Mariachi event was at night.
“It was after sundown, so people could eat,” she said — food being, of course, a critical part of the celebration.
This week in live music:
WNXP Presents Anna St. Louis at the Blue Room on Saturday. WNXP’s vinyl listening party for Music Citizens episode 2 is at Vinyl Tap this Sunday. Meanwhile, The Weather Station performs at The Basement East. For more events, head over to WNXP.org/events.
