Habibi Festival to Return to Joe's Pub With Ghalia Benali, Nadine El Roubi, and More

Joe's Pub at The Public Theater has announced the full lineup for the sixth annual Habibi Festival. A celebration of the many cultures from South West Asia and North Africa (SWANA), the festival will host four nights of the region's contemporary and traditional music and art, Thursday through Sunday, October 8-11. The featured artists are Amir ElSaffar New Quartet, Akram Abdulfattah, Nadine El Roubi, Marwa Morgan & Ameer Armaly Ensemble, Laura Elkeslassy, and Ghalia Benali. Tickets are on sale now at joespub.org.

The festival platforms the complexity and beauty of the SWANA region's artistic experience, with traditional and contemporary sounds, often cross-pollinated, from Palestine, Egypt, Sudan, Tunisia, Morocco, and more. Habibi is simultaneously a home for the larger community, a point of access for new and curious listeners, and a safe space to try new things. Neo-soul mingles with avant jazz, Eastern classical traditions overlap with pop, maqām embraces cabaret.

Each evening's music will be followed by discussions with the artists and festival partner afikra | عفكرة. Founded by Mikey Muhanna, afikra is a global organization that promotes inquiry into and conversations on the diversity and richness of the Arab world's cultures and histories.

The festival is a collaboration between the Director of Joe's Pub Alex Knowlton, artist/composer/curator Yacine Boulares, and curator/producer Meera Dugal who are bonded by the goal of creating more joyful spaces for performance, conversation, and storytelling from this part of the world. The trio comments:

'For many of the artists we present, music is a way of negotiating questions of home, memory, migration, identity, and belonging. Habibi creates a space where those stories don't have to be simplified. They can be complicated, contemporary, joyful, experimental, and deeply rooted in tradition all at once. Preservation and innovation aren't opposites.

The artists at Habibi understand that traditions stay alive by being interpreted, challenged, remixed, and carried into new contexts. Our role is to create a space where those continuities and transformations can be heard side by side. The conditions for cultural exchange are getting harder, particularly for artists and communities connected to SWANA. That makes it even more important for us to keep creating opportunities for people to meet, collaborate, and share work in New York.

As opportunities for exchange with artists and communities across SWANA become more difficult, we're committed to using what we've built—our relationships, resources, and community—to keep the city open to those encounters. The cross-pollination that happens when artists come together is not incidental; it's one of the things that makes New York culturally vital.”

2026 Habibi Festival Schedule And Lineup