The city of Sulaimani commemorated the 47th anniversary of the death of prolific Kurdish singer and composer Hassan Zirak on Wednesday evening.

In a ceremony attended by Sulaimani Governor Haval Abu Bakir, singers, and Zirak’s fans, the Hassan Zirak Award was given to a number of Sulaimani artists. The gathering ended with the playing of his music.

He was christened ‘Zirak’, meaning ‘talented’ in Kurdish, for his ability to transform folkloric songs into modern studio masterpieces. 

Singing in the South Kurmanci dialect, Hasan Zirak’s star power was celebrated from the remote northern Kurdish villages of Syria and Turkey all the way down to the easternmost part of Khorasan province in Iran. Kurdish society listened to his songs as a means of protecting an endangered linguistic and cultural heritage.

Despite being near illiterate, Zirak was able to compose some 1,500 songs, often in radio studios, from Baghdad to Tehran via Kermanshah.

Expelled from Iraq after Abd Al-Karim Qasim’s military coup of 1958, Zirak flitted between the Kurdistan Region and the Kurdish cities of Saqiz and Kermanshah in Iran.

Zirak was at the peak of his career when he was diagnosed with liver cancer.

Hospitalized in Saqiz in late 1971, he died on June 26 1972, aged just 51.

Zirak is buried in his beloved hometown of Bokan, Iranian Kurdistan.

A book on the life and songs of Zirak, whose title can loosely be translated as ‘Hassan Zirak: Chirping with Joy’, was published to commemorate the anniversary. 

Published by the Sulaimani Department of Art and Culture, it was co-written by several authors and supervised by Mariwan Masoud.

Photos by Jamal Sargaty