| SHAHRAM NAZERI & HAFEZ NAZERI
“IN THE PATH OF RUMI” CONCERT
FEBRUARY 18, 2006; 8PM
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: CONTACT:
January 12, 2006 Michael Santoro, 415.561.6571
msantoro@doordog.org
(San Francisco) – On February 18 th at Herbst Theater , Door Dog Music Productions, producers of the San Francisco World Music Festival, is proud to present world renowned Persian Kurdish vocalist Shahram Nazeri . He will be accompanied by his son Hafez Nazeri who has created new compositions entitled, “In the Path of Rumi” , an attempt to bridge the ancient, traditional music of Iran and western classical music, while preserving the essence and fundamental structures of Persian music.
“In the Path of Rumi” project will incorporate new orchestrations, harmonies, rhythmic patterns, and melodic forms to match the particular mood of Rumi's poetry, while preserving the essence and fundamental structures of Persian music. This concert will recreate the atmosphere of Nava, a traditional Persian scale, not by resorting to familiar note sequences but by the use of new sonority, texture, phrase and rhythmic combinations.
The musicians will combine both Eastern and Western musical sensibilities, by combining the quarter-tones found in Near Eastern scales with Western harmonic structures. Unlike classical Persian music, individual pieces will traverse multiple keys, and as a result, resulting in an intermingling of ancient Persian music with new influences.
For this evening, the orchestration will feature traditional Iranian folk instruments, played with new techniques (including the setar, daf and dammam) and unlikely pairings (including viola, cello and tabla). Unlike most previous projects in fusion music; however, the Western and Indian instruments will not be utilized here as mere accompaniment or special effect, but fully incorporated into the compositions.
“In the Path of Rumi” is an attempt to demonstrate to the world that classical Persian and Sufi music is constantly evolving, not just repeating old styles and patterns. This style of music has been coined “Modern Persian Classical Music” by Hafez Nazeri, and embraces change and rejuvenation while maintaining understanding and cultural roots in the legacy of the past. This is vital for both the health of Persian culture as a whole and Persian music in particular.
“…impassioned singing and meticulous improvisation…” ~ New York Times “…Iran's Pavarotti: Shahram Nazeri…” ~ The Christian Science Monitor MUSICIAN BIOS: SHAHRAM NAZERI (Vocalist) Born in the Kermanshah province of Iran, Shahram Nazeri has become a living icon of traditional Persian music. His musical talents were first nurtured by his father at a very young age. Throughout his childhood, he was under the tutorage of the most legendary masters of Persian music including Abdollah Davami, Nourali Boroumand, and Mahmood Karimi. At the tender age of eleven, he accomplished his first television performance. He continued to perform and release successful recordings. By twenty-nine, he had gained a loyal fan base and released his album, “Gol'eh Sad Barg”, which has held the record for the highest selling recording of traditional Persian music in Iran to this date. Since then, Master Nazeri has released over 40 recordings. From early on, Master Nazeri began to sing and compose music to the works of Molana, Iran's most cherished Sufi and transcendental poet. He was the first traditional performer to bring the poetry of Molana to life. Because of this, Master Nazeri was able to pioneer “Erfani (Sufi) Music” and craft a new style of Persian composition that distinguished him from all other performers. He has played an instrumental part in introducing Molana to the west. Beyond the ancient works of Molana, Master Nazeri has also had the vision to initiate contemporary Persian poetry into traditional compositions. His progressive view of traditional Persian music has lead to a collaborative effort with his son, Hafez in introducing a world view to traditional Persian music through The Path of Rumi Project. In the year 2000, Master Nazeri performed with a talented group of young performers called The Rumi Ensemble. The group performed in a series of landmark concerts in twenty Iranian cities. Record breaking audiences attended sold out performances which were praised for their novel approach to orchestration, harmony and mode. These musical innovations not only reached younger audiences, many of whom were newly attracted to Persian classical music, but also deeply influenced the musical scene in Iran and beyond. Master Nazeri's legendary performances have garnered international attention. He has received first prize awards in Music festivals around the world. In 1975, he won first prize honors for his performance at the Concourse de Musique Traditionelle. This was the foremost and most prestigious Persian music competition. Concourse de Musique Traditionelle was the first time that Iran's greatest performers would have the opportunity to showcase their talents, and Master Nazeri's top honors introduced him to countless admirers in Iran and worldwide. Throughout his career, Master Nazeri has performed on many of the world's most notable stages. Most recently he had an unprecedented full-house at the Kodak Theater in Los Angeles followed by a first-time performance at Irvine's City Hall. His music has traveled the world to sold-out audiences from North America to Europe, the Middle East and Asia. He has shared his music at The Sfinks Festival in Belgium, Festa del Popolo in Italy; Theatre de la Ville in Paris and Beiteddine Festival in Lebanon. In recent years, Master Nazeri was awarded Best Singer of Classical Persian Music by the Cultural Ministry of Iran. The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) together with the Iranian Student Group honored Master Nazeri with the Living Legend Award for his many contributions in escalating Persian Traditional Music worldwide. He has also received innumerous awards of honor and appreciation from various Organizations, including the prestigious NIPOC. Master Nazeri is truly an idol of traditional Persian music and composition. He is revered internationally for his brilliance in music and performance. The New York Times has dubbed Master Nazeri as the “Persian Nightingale” and the Christian Science Monitor has called him “Iran's Pavarotti”. Master Nazeri continues his efforts to elevate Persian traditional music to the world stage.
HAFEZ NAZERI (Composer, Setar, and Tanbour Player) Despite his youth, Hafez Nazeri is one of Iran's most influential and admired new composers. Son of the legendary musician Shahram Nazeri, Hafez began voice lessons at the age of three, where his brilliance became evidence as he placed first in many voice competitions. At the age of seven, he studied the ancient instruments of Tanbur and Setar . Thereafter, Hafez became intrigued by the Daf , an instrument which he self-taught creating a unique technique now emulated by many of Iran's young Daf players. By the age of nine, Hafez had already begun to perform along side his father in many of Europe and the Middle-East's most prestigious music festivals. His serious study of voice and Setar continued into the development of his own distinctive polyphonic combination of voice and instrumentation. He is considered to have extended the technique of Setar playing, and has received praise from Setar players and craftsmen alike. At the age of sixteen he had performed at festivals the likes of The Sfinks Festival in Belgium, Festa del Popolo in Italy; Theatre de la Ville in Paris and Beiteddine Festival in Lebanon. In the year 2000, Hafez assembled a talented group of young performers called The Rumi Ensemble. The group performed Hafez's original musical compositions in a series of landmark concerts in twenty Iranian cities. Record breaking audiences attended sold out performances which were praised for their novel approach to orchestration, harmony and mode. These musical innovations not only reached younger audiences, many of whom were newly attracted to Persian classical music, but also deeply influenced the musical scene in Iran and beyond. Selected pieces from this tour have been preformed by The Armenian Philharmonic Orchestra in London's Elizabeth Hall, and in various music festivals throughout the world, such as Sweden music festival , Fes festival and the Theatre de la Ville in Paris. www.rumisymphonyproject.com In 2005, Hafez, along with new members of his Rumi Ensemble, launched a vastly successful North America tour called In the Path of Rumi, which began with an unsurpassed full-house at the Kodak Theater in Los Angeles followed by a first-time performance, was held at Irvine's City Hall. In the midst of this tour, Hafez received many accolades and awards for his ground-breaking approach to traditional Persian music. With the Rumi Ensemble, Hafez aspired to create a world view of traditional Persian music, assembling artists comprising of four nationalities and pioneering a new style of music he has called Modern Persian Traditional Music. The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) together with the Iranian Student Group honored Hafez with the Distinguished Young Composer Award for his creativity and innovation in music. He has also received innumerous awards of honor and appreciation from various Organizations, including the prestigious NIPOC. . His international appeal led to many invitations to speak at various media outlets including National Public Radio here in the United States. Since completion of his studies in Composition and Conducting from New York's Mannes College of Music, Hafez has become interested building a musical bridge between eastern and western cultures and is currently focused on his latest Rumi Symphony project. SIAVASH NAZERI (Player of Daf) was born on the 1979 in Tehran. Siavash had the advantage of having Shahram Nazeri (one of the best known Iranian singers in the world) as his uncle. He was introduced to music at an early stage of his life. At the age of 13 he started to play the Daf without ever going to classes or having a master. Later, for a short period of time he benefited from the lessons given to him by the well known masters of the instrument; they were Bijan Kamkar and after that it was Ahmad Khaktinat and then Ardeshir Fahimi who gave him some lessons. With a passion for Daf that was like the passion for life he learned two styles of playing that were completely new and apart from others. These groups include Kamkars and Dastan Ensemble; Young Iranian National musicians and also Traditional Iranian music group 8 and Rumi Ensemble.
He has participated in number of concerts. Kurdish music concert with the Kamkars group, with singing of Shahram Nazeri in Solaimanieh in Iraq for 3 nights in September of 2000. In October of 2000 he participated in one night of charity concert for children with cancer. The group was Dastan with the singing of Shahram Nazeri; the conductor of this concert was Hamid Motabassem. It was held at the Milad Hall in Tehran's International Fair.Since then he has participated in dozens of concerts with Shahram Nazeri and with several Ensembles.
LIUH-WEN TING (Viola) An active performer of many different musical genres, Liuh-Wen Ting has distinguished herself as a violist of great versatility and sensitivity. A graduate of the Juilliard School with Bachelors and Masters degrees on the viola, Ms. Ting received the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society Award in 1989, which led to concert and radio appearances with the ensemble. She was a member of the award winning Meridian String Quartet from 1996~2001, and has collaborated with artists across many different spectrums, including the Cassatt Quartet, the musicians of AACM, cellist Bernard Greenhouse, flutist Paula Robison, and soprano Kathleen Battle. Most recently, she had begun a series of sold-out concert tours of major US cities with the renowned Persian vocal master Shahram Nazeri and his son Hafez Nazeri, composer and setar player. Actively involved in the contemporary music, Ms. Ting is on the staff of the Composers Conference and Chamber Music Center at the Wellesley College, and has premiered many works by American composers. Her debut recital at Merkin Hall included five commissioned pieces, based on the five elements of I-Ching. As the principal member of the SEM ensemble, she has performed in festivals such as The Prague Spring Music Festival , Ostrava New Music Days in Czech Republic, and The Warsaw Autumn Music Festival in Poland. her solo performance of Viola in My Life by Morton Feldman with the Janacek Symphony Orchestra was praised by The Czech Music 2001 as “an extraordinary experience”. In March 2004, she was invited to perform a concert of music for solo viola and electronics at the Primavera en la Habana international electro-acoustic music festival . Ms Ting has recorded chamber music works for labels such as Deutsche Grammophon, Sony, and Capstone Record.
JIM SANTI OWEN is an American percussionist, teacher, and performer based alternately in the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles. Drumming since the age of eight, he has been studying tabla since 1991 from Pandit Swapan Chaudhuri at the Ali Akbar College of Music, at the California Institute of the Arts, and in India. Since 1995 he has been studying South Indian percussion instruments including mridangam , ghatam , kanjira and morsing from T.H. Subash Chandran and tavil from K. Sekar. At Cal Arts, Owen studied Jazz with Charlie Haden, James Newton, and Tootie Heath and African drumming and dance from the Ladzekpo Brothers. He also studies the art of accompaniment for the traditional Indian dance known as Kathak under one of its masters, Pandit Chitresh Das. Owen holds a Bachelor's of Humanities from New College of California and a Master's degree in World Music from California Institute of the Arts.
Owen has performed with his gurus , Pandit Swapan Chaudhuri, Subash Chandran, and K.Sekar both in India and America. He has also performed with internationally renowned artists including: Jazz legend Pharoah Sanders, Nubian musician Hamza el Din, guitar innovator, Stanley Jordan, drumset virtuoso, Steve Smith, minimalist composer Terry Riley, Jazz saxophonist Joseph Jarman (Art Ensemble of Chicago), Israeli oud player Yair Dalal, tabla virtuoso Bikram Ghosh, kanjira exponent Ganesh Kumar, devotional singer Jai Uttal, avant-garde pianist Myra Melford, Italian percussionist Alessandra Belloni, Cuban pianist Omar Sosa and bansuri flute exponent Steve Gorn. He has appeared on numerous recordings in America and has recorded in India with ghatam maestro T.H. Vikku Vinayakram and kanjira wizard Selva Ganesh.
Additionally, Owen has been involved in the San Francisco dance community as an award winning composer and performer. He has worked with numerous dancers and choreographers including Pandit Chitresh Das, Alonzo King, Kim Epifano, and K.J. Holmes. He has studied and taught Contact Improvisation and other body-based improvisational forms. From 1994 until 1998 Owen collaborated with dancer/musician Jules Beckman on an evolving form of dance, voice, and bucket drumming called Percussion Theater, which he still teaches. He is currently on faculty with The San Francisco Dance Conservatory, Lines Ballet Pre-professional program, and ODC Children's Program where he teaches music, drumming, and performance to dozens of young dancers.
Owen co-directs the Indian percussion ensemble Tabla Rasa with whom he produced San Francisco's first Festival of Sacred Drumming, Dance, and Song in 1998.
This concert is produced by DOOR DOG MUSIC PRODUCTIONS & DILAN ENTERTAINMENT
VENUE:
HERBST THEATER
401 Van Ness Avenue
San Francisco
TICKETS:
$35, $60, $80, $100
City Box Office: 415 392-4400
On the web: www.sfworldmusicfestival.org
INFORMATION:
415-561-6571 (Door Dog Music Productions) www.sfworldmusicfestival.org
info@doordog.org
DOOR DOG MUSIC PRODUCTIONS FUNDERS & SPONSORS
Door Dog Music Productions is sponsored & funded in part by: Alliance for California Traditional Arts, Bocce Café, Brooke Oliver Law Group, Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of California Berkeley, Creative Work Fund, Fort Mason Foundation, Fund for Folk Culture, James Irvine Foundation, KPFA 94.1FM , Potrero Nuevo Fund of the Tides Foundation, San Francisco Foundation, San Francisco Grants for the Arts Hotel Tax Fund, Shulte Grants for the Arts & Crafts, WA Gerbode Foundation, William & Flora Hewlett Foundation, Walter & Elise Haas Fund, WESTAF, and the Zellerbach Family Foundation.
FESTIVAL BACKGROUND Founded in 2000 by Executive Director Michael Santoro and Program Director Kutay Derin Kugay, THE SAN FRANCISCO WORLD MUSIC FESTIVAL uniquely showcases the musical diversity from the Bay Area and around the globe by presenting high quality world music performances by master artists both locally and overseas, and from traditional to contemporary explorations.
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