Brief history of piano in Iran
Hello DoostAn' Aziz,
Our next dore will be another interesting musical one featuring Mr. Ramin Zolfonun.
I have not had the pleasure of attending his previous session, but I heard that it was fantastic.
Ramin is going to play piano and/or his tAr for us most of the time. He also will talk about "sabk" or style and his own "no-Avary" on the piano. But for the most part, he's just going to play and answer any questions that people might have.
Doreh is going to be at his house again. I don't have his address currently. If anybody has it, please send it to this alias or send it to me and I will distribute it.
Thanks
Fariba
DoostAneh aziz,
For those who were able to make it to Ramin's place last night, there's nothing I can say to even begin to describe the beauty of Ramin's music. But for the rest, here's a poor attempt:
Ramin started by giving us a brief history of piano in Iran, mainly concentrating on those musicians who attempted to show the people that it is possible for the piano to be an instrument of traditional persian music. Of course, as is true with any "No-Avary", there was, and has been, great resistance towards this idea. But as change is imminent when the time is right, this new innovation, new style, was born and the man who dedicated his life to this endeavor was Mahjoobi. Though never met Mahjoobi, Ramin talks about him as his teacher and mentor. He's been working on this style of music for a while now, learning it mainly by listening to Mahjoobi's work recodrded on audio tapes, while keeping his mind open enough to allow his own "No-Avary" and a little touch of his own "sabk" to shape what he demonstrated so elegantly last night.
He will have a concert coming up in May in which he will do a more complete version of his last night's solo performance in Foothill college. Those of you who chose to watch Tonya and Nancy last night(!!!!) and now are kicking yourselves for having missed last night's event, I would highly recommend going to this event in May. As I'm sure everybody who attended last night's doreh will agree, Ramin is a very talented guy. A lot of us asked him why he's not recording his work. He offered several reasons one of which was his limited budget. But it basically comes down to getting exposure and getting support. and that's one thing our group can offer. We can provide him with the support and the feedback he needs to plot his course in making this music known. Let's give him that support.
Anyway, we finished the session with some Q&A while listening to a piece in which Ramin had performed with Mr. ShajariAn during his visit to U.S. I'll call Ramin Z. (since he's not on this alias) and thank him for playing host and the piano(!) at the same time.
cheers,
ka
Doreh Events Home Page