Workshops at IYDA and The Little Black Fish
The Little Black Fish is an Iranian children's story written in 1967 by Samad Behrangi. Behrangi sadly drowned at the age of 28 while swimming in a local river but his work continues to be revered in Iranian society. The story tells of a fish who longs to explore beyond the stream in which she ...
>
Arvin Sedaghatkish
I first met Arvin at a talk he gave comparing two pieces by contemporary Iranian composers - 'Music - Haiku' for solo piano by Ehsan Saboohi and 'Only that spark and nothing more' for solo oboe by Karen Keyhani. He talked at great length about how both composers allude to aspects of traditional ...
>
Off the beaten taqsim
I will be giving a talk on 'Stay Close' at City University on Wednesday 23rd October 2013 at 2:45pm. This half-day conference will "focus on the work of practitioners in the Middle Eastern music scene in the urban UK...exploring the lived, eclectic experience of composers and performers in London ...
>
Pallett
During my time in Iran, Pallett was the most talked about band on the music scene. So it was much to my delight (and the envy of my friends) that I was invited to their concert on my final night in Tehran. The setting was magnificent: a concert hall hidden below the famous Azadi tower, itself ...
>
Moshtagh-e Shiraz Group
A women-only concert is a strange experience - at once uplifting and tragic; exciting to see a stage filled with female performers and yet sad to relinquish all phones at the door for fear of photographing an unveiled woman in public. I experienced this paradox while watching the Moshtagh-e Shiraz ...
>
Farrokhzad Layegh
A cardiologist by trade, Farokhzad Layegh somehow also finds time to write beautiful music. Below is the piece 'Tempus I' for string quartet from the acclaimed 2012 album Sus-Septed Tempus released on Hermes Records. [audio ...
>
Orientalism, creativity and Iranian music
For some background on debates around Orientalism and creativity in relation to Iranian music, see here for an article written by me focusing on the film 'No-one Knows About Persian Cats' by Bahman ...
>