May 2021 Kayhan Kalhor Program Book

KAYHAN KALHOR MAY 14–16, 2021

2020/2021 Concert Season

2O14/2O15 CONCERT SERIES

Founded in 1943, UChicago Presents brings extraordinary artists from around the world for dynamic live performances, educational experiences, and community engagement through a diverse mix of chamber music and recitals, early, contemporary, jazz, and world music, including artist residencies, commissions, and premieres. Concerts feature pre- or post-event talks led by University of Chicago scholars and are performed in treasured campus venues such as Mandel Hall, Rockefeller Chapel, and the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts.

Heralded by the Chicago Tribune as “a model of what a classical concert series should be,” and “the city’s most important by a mile chamber music series” by the Chicago Sun-Times, UChicago Presents has been dedicated to presenting music on an intimate scale at the highest level since its inception. The pursuit of excellence is central to this mission, infusing not only UChicago Presents’ music but also its relationship with its audience and community. b

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Kayhan Kalhor

Seth Parker Woods

Kayhan Kalhor

Quince

Quince

John Corkill

SPRING 2021 VIRTUAL EVENTS b MARCH 30–APRIL 30

Shomyo: Buddhist Ritual Chant—Moonlight Mantra: Shomyo no Kai—Voices of a Thousand Years b APRIL 8 / 7:30 PM

Virtual Workshop: Shomyo for Everyday Wellness

b APRIL 9–11

b APRIL 16–18

b MAY 7–9

b APRIL 21 / 12:30 PM

b MAY 14–16

b APRIL 23–25

b MAY 21–23

Ian Bostridge, tenor, and Imogen Cooper, piano Virtual Lunch Discussion: Aurelio Martínez Aurelio Martínez and the Garifuna Soul Band

Encore – SOUND/SITES: Seth Parker Woods

Echoes of the East: Kayhan Kalhor, kamancheh

Quince: love fail

b MAY 27–31

Bach’s Goldberg Variations:

Mahan Esfahani, harpsichord b APRIL 30–MAY 2 The Great American Songbook: Sullivan Fortner, piano

SOUND/SITES: John Corkill, percussion

KAYHAN KALHOR, kamancheh NAVID AFGHAH, tombak

FRIDAY, MAY 14—SUNDAY, MAY 16, 2021 / ONLINE Pre-performance conversation with Kayhan Kalhor and UChicago Professor of Music Philip V. Bohlman

PROGRAM

Echoes of the East

This concert is partially supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, and International House at the University of Chicago.

This streaming event is a syndicated production and was previously broadcast by Duke Performances on November 14, 2020.

VIDEO PRODUCTION CREDITS Project Manager: Peyman Soltanabadi Executive Producers: Masood Barzi and Saeed Barzi Director: Soroush Hashemipanah Editor: Bita Kazemi Cameramen: Alireza Soleimanian, Mohammad Nasiri, Sina Rahimian Lighting: Mohsen Moradi Sound Recording: Hossein Moghadam and Ali Pirouzi

PROFILES b KAYHAN KALHOR Three-time Grammy Award nominee Kayhan Kalhor is an internationally acclaimed virtuoso on the kamancheh. Through his many musical collaborations, he has been instrumental in popularizing Persian music in the West and is a creative force in today’s music scene. His performances of traditional Persian music and multiple collaborations have attracted audiences

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PROFILES around the globe. Kalhor has studied the music of Iran’s many regions, in particular those of Khorason and Kordestan, and has toured the world as a soloist with various ensembles and orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic and the Orchestre National de Lyon. He is cofounder of the renowned ensembles Dastan, Ghazal: Persian & Indian Improvisations, and Masters of Persian Music. Kalhor has composed works for two of Iran’s most renowned vocalists, Mohammad Reza Shajarian and Shahram Nazeri, and has also performed and recorded with some of Iran’s greatest instrumentalists. He has composed music for television and film, and was most recently featured on the soundtrack of Francis Ford Coppola’s Youth Without Youth in a score on which he collaborated with composer Osvaldo Golijov. In 2004, Kalhor was invited

by American composer John Adams to give a solo recital at Carnegie Hall as part of the Perspectives series, and in the same year, he appeared on a double bill at Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival, sharing the program with the Festival Orchestra performing Mozart’s Requiem. Kalhor a member of Yo-Yo Ma’s Silkroad Ensemble, and his compositions appear on several of the ensemble’s albums. Kayhan Kalhor is represented by Opus 3 Artists.

This concert marks Kayhan Kalhor’s UChicago Presents debut.

NAVID AFGHAH Navid Afghah began his musical studies in 1981 at the Center for Preservation and Propagation of Iranian Music under Mahmoud Farahmand-Bafi.

He has taken lessons in harmony, counterpoint, orchestration, and stylistics under Kambiz Roshan-Rouhan and Dr. Hossein Mehraban, and has performed in numerous concerts both in Iran and abroad. Afghah has collaborated with the most influential contemporary Iranian musicians and bands, including Faramarz Payvar, Aref, Dalaho, Aina, Messiah, Darius Safwat, Parviz Meshkatian, Hossein Alizadeh, Kayhan Kalhor, Ardeshir Kamkar, Behdad Babaei, Mehdi Azarsina, Massoud Azadeh, Shahram Nazeri, and Ali Ghamsari. Afghah has collaborated in writing soundtracks or composing music for documentary and experimental films. Such films include Tehran Has No More Pomegranates

by Masoud Bakhshi; Sivand, Earth, Dream

by Hossein Karim Pour; The Seventh Day by Arash Raissian, and Nena by Mohammad Reza Vatan-Doost. He has conducted more than 200 workshops as a tombak instructor in academic centers across Iran, and has been the leading judge of musical performance section in many Iranian music festivals.

This concert marks Navid Afghah’s UChicago Presents debut.

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PROGRAM NOTES BY SIAVASH SABETROHANI ‫ یمیس کشخ‬, ‫ یبوچ کشخ‬, ‫تسوپ کشخ‬ ‫؟تسود یاوآ نیا دیآ یم اجک زا‬ Bare (dry) string, bare wood, bare hide, Whence cometh the voice of the beloved? (by Parviz Neydavood (1939–2020), Jewish Iranian poet, written for violinist Parviz Yahaghi) The term traditional Iranian (Persian) music as used today most often refers to traditional music from Tehran—the capital of Iran since the 18th century—according to the radif tradition, now practiced throughout the country. Although this narrow definition is to be used in this short essay, it is important to remember that Iranian music encompasses a much broader range than radif-based music and includes regional music from across Iran: Kurdish, Azeri, Baluchi, Gilaki, Turkmen, to name only a few.

With the onset of Islam and its rapid spread in the seventh century and the ensuing establishment of the Caliphate across western Asia, music of the various peoples of the region—including Arabs, Persians, Turkmens, Kurds, and others—flourished significantly and was codified into a system of maqāmāt.

Comparable to the concept of raga in Indian music, each maqam (Arabic: location) is a melodic mode that defines the pitch organization of pieces. Over centuries, there developed three major branches of maqam music, each of which gradually diverged along separate paths: Arabic, Turkish, and Persian. In Iran, it was in the 18th century, during the Qajar dynasty (1789–1925), when the twelve maqams evolved into the current radif concept.

Āghā Ali-Akbar Farāhāni, the father of the current radif in Iranian music

Radif (Persian: order) refers to the complete collection of short melodies and melodic formulae (known as gusheh) that have been passed down hereditarily by masters and collected, notated, and recorded in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Thus, different radifs exist based on the master who transmitted them, and they can be either instrumental (e.g., radif of Mirza Abdollah) or vocal (e.g., radif of Abdollah Davami). Based on the particular radif, gushehs can vary in number from less than 150 to more than 250. These radifs are, in turn, categorized in twelve modal collections: seven dastgāh (Persian: system), and five āvāz (Persian: song).

Each of the seven dastgāhs and five āvāzes have a unique interval structure, final, and reciting tone to them. The dastgāh concept is so integral to traditional Iranian music that the latter is often called dastgāhi music.

Even though since the early 20th century—with the advent of recording technology and the import of European notation practices—Iranian music has changed in many ways, it still remains primarily improvisational. In practice, the music is improvised by the performer starting in a particular dastgāh and then navigating through several gushehs and even modulating to another dastgāh.

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NOTES Of the many instruments used in Iranian music, the most typical ones include: tār (long-necked plucked instrument with six strings, four of which in double courses), setār (long-necked plucked instrument with four strings and a rather quiet sound—not to be confused with Indian sitar!), kamancheh (bowed instrument with four strings, played with a variable-tension bow), santoor (Iranian hammered dulcimer), ney (end-blown wind instrument with six holes), and tonbak (alt. tombak, Iranian goblet drum). Instrumental music concerts typically involve at least two instruments (as Two tārs and three setārs in today’s concert): a melodic one (here: kamancheh) and a percussion one (usually tonbak, as in this performance), although solo concerts are not uncommon.

While each improvised concert is unique, there are certain recurring commonalities that one can expect: a slow introduction (darāmad), usually in free time, leading to faster and rhythmically vivacious sections, interspersed with nonmetric lyrical passages on the kamancheh accompanied by rhythmic ostinatos on the tonbak, along with extended solos for both instruments that, as we hear from Kalhor and Afghah in this performance, demonstrate the virtuosity of the musicians on their respective instruments.

—Siavash Sabetrohani, Ph.D. candidate in Music Theory and History

Suggestions for further listening: • Series “Regional Music of Iran,” published by Mahoor Institute of Culture and Arts, Tehran.

• Different recordings of the radif. For example, recordings by Hossein Alizadeh, or Nur-Ali Boroumand.

• Recordings by Mohammad Reza Shajarian. For example, his fundraising concert, Hamnava ba Bam, for the victims of the earthquake in the city of Bam (2003), together with Hossein Alizadeh, Kayhan Kalhor, and Homayoun Shajarian.

• Also by Shajarian, a “Tiny Desk Concert” recorded for NPR: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnI4R9Bdl3g • Hossein Alizadeh. Neynava. La Jolla, CA: Kereshmeh Records, 1994. (an example of composed, not improvised, Iranian music) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maDI-uEWB4U • Recordings by Qamar-ol-Moluk Vaziri. (Known as the Queen of Persian music and one of the most influential female singers of the 20th century.)

• For an example of solo instrumental concert, see this recital by Kayhan Kalhor (on setar!) from 2020:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_SSrzMBHCA Suggestions for further reading in English: • Farhat, Hormoz. The Dastgah Concept in Persian Music. Cambridge University Press, 1990.

• Lucas, Ann. E. Music of a Thousand Years: A New History of Persian Musical Traditions. University of California Press, 2019.

• Nettl, Bruno. The Radif of Persian Music: Studies of Structure and Cultural Context in the Classical Music of Iran.

Revised Edition. Champaign, IL: Elephant & Cat, 1992.

• Nooshin, Laudan. “Beyond the Radif: New Forms of Improvisational Practice in Iranian Music” Music Theory Online, Volume 19, Number 2, June 2013. https://mtosmt.org/issues/mto.13.19.2/mto.13.19.2.nooshin.php

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UChicago Presents appreciates the support of the Office of the Provost and the Department of Music for its operations and the Logan Center for the Arts for its partnership on Jazz at the Logan and family and school programming. $10,000 AND ABOVE Hanna H. Gray National Endowment for the Arts Reva and David Logan Foundation Revada Foundation Illinois Arts Council Alan Cravitz and Shashi Caudill Adam M. Dubin and Wei-Jen Chen $5,000–$9,999 Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation James and Joan Shapiro $2,500–$4,999 Anonymous Elizabeth F. Cheney Foundation Lynne F. and Ralph A. Schatz Dr. Elizabeth E. Sengupta* $1,000–$2,499 Anonymous Pamela Baker and Jay R. Franke Ann Bratton and John Partelow Howard and Elizabeth Helsinger William and Blair Lawlor Dr. and Mrs. Alan Leff Emilysue Pinnell and the Helen and Curtis Pinnell Foundation Anne Walters Robertson and J. Robert Robertson Evelyn Brody and Jack Siegel Betty Vandenbosch $500–$999 Anonymous Carla F. Berry Teri Edelstein and Neil Harris Emlyn Eisenach and Eric Poser Paula A. Golden Joel Handelman and Sarah Wolff Handelman Joseph Isenbergh Raymond J. and Alma M. Kuby Barbara Mirecki

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Shankar and Katherine Nair Shulamit Ran and Dr. Abraham M. Lotan Sidney Robinson Christine and Earl Ronneberg Bhooma and R.N. Sailappan Mr. and Mrs. Harold Sanders Allen and Esther Schechter Carol Grossman Schneider Marshall Sparberg Judith E. Stein Carol Stukey Timothy J. Thurlow in memory of Howard Brown Nicholas Weingarten and Cynthia Winter $50–$99 Anonymous Diane and Robert Altkorn Mr. and Mrs. Theodore N. Asner Lenora M. Austin Marjorie M. Benson Geoffrey Flick Marie Greaney Richard Hoskins in honor of Amy Iwano Dorothy Jeffries Lauren and John Kern in honor of Jim Kern Laura Kracke Ellen McGrew Robert Parsons Dr. and Mrs. Louis Philipson Kathleen Rundell Louella Ward MATCHING GIFTS IBM Corporation SPECIAL THANKS The Saints

We also thank the many individuals who make annual contributions under $50. Every gift we receive helps to bring the music to the stage.

This list reflects contributions received for the period between May 1, 2020, and April 30, 2021.

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UPCOMING EVENTS

SOUND/SITES

QUINCE: LOVE FAIL b

MAY 21–23

JOHN CORKILL, PERCUSSION b

MAY 27–31

Don Michael Randel Ensemble-in-Residence and

Inventive percussionist and UChicago artist-in-

cutting-edge vocal quartet Quince presents David

residence John Corkill channels the architectural and

Lang’s love fail, a piece commissioned and made

acoustical splendor of UChicago’s Mansueto Library

famous by Anonymous 4 on texts by author Lydia

and Saieh Hall in a curiosity-sparking program of

Davis and medieval poetry.

contemporary works.

UCHICAGO PRESENTS NEEDS YOUR SUPPORT MORE THAN EVER! As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, musicians remain unable to perform for inperson audiences. With our virtual events, we are working to help artists make their music and to connect you in interesting and inspiring ways with the music, while keeping events at low or no cost.

Please consider giving generously to keep the music playing. We would be so6 grateful! | UChicago Presents 77 Season th

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