Kayhan Kalhor, Iran’s foremost contemporary composer, educator, and master musician, will offer a rare evening of Persian classical music at The Town Hall on November 30 at 7pm.
The evening will be Kalhor’s first large-scale concert of Persian classical music in New York City in more than 10 years.
His Town Hall appearance will be a rare celebration of pure Persian classical music, a tradition of depth, subtlety, and beauty.
“We come from a venerable culture that has made profound contributions to the world through a rich legacy of poetry, science, architecture, philosophy, and art, and that has shaped civilizations for centuries. Through my music, I hope to reveal the splendor of my homeland, so often misrepresented and maligned. When people connect through music, the space opens for dialogue, awareness, and discovery.”
Kayhan Kalhor
A GRAMMY-winning virtuoso of the kamancheh (a bowed, cello-like instrument often referred to as a spike fiddle), Kayhan Kalhor is a transcendent figure in the classical and global music worlds. He has performed Persian classical music as a soloist and as a member of various ensembles and orchestras, as well as through notable collaborations across musical and cultural traditions.
He was an original member of Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Project, co-founded the Persian “supergroup” The Masters of Persian Music with Mohammed Reza Shajarian and Hossein Alizadeh, created the Grammy-nominated Persian-Indian ensemble Ghazal with sitarist Shujaat Husain Khan, performed with orchestras including the New York Philharmonic, and recorded with the Kronos Quartet, the string quartet Brooklyn Rider, Malian kora master Toumani Diabaté, and Turkish virtuoso Erdal Erzincan.
Born in Iran to a Kurdish family, Kalhor’s parents were music lovers. He grew up listening to both Kurdish folk and Persian classical music around the house. A musical child prodigy, he was just 13 when he was invited to join the Iranian National Radio and Television Orchestra, where he performed for five years. It was the beginning of an extraordinary career that included studies of the Iranian classical repertoire and regional traditions, especially those of Khorason and Kordestan, and Western classical music, in Rome, Italy, in the late 70s, and later in Ottawa, Canada, where he received a degree in music.
At Town Hall, Kalhor will be accompanied by one of today’s great setar players, Kiya Tabassian, a master of the lute-like instrument, and Behrouz Jamali on tombak, a goblet drum considered the principal percussion instrument in Persian classical music. Musician, singer and composer Tabassian, a resident of Montreal and former student of Kalhor’s, has explored the blending of Persian musical traditions and global styles. In 2017, he co-founded and has since served as artistic director of the Centre des Musiciens du Monde in Montreal. Jamali, in addition to his work as a percussionist, is also a music producer and documentary filmmaker. He is based in the United States.
Kalhor emphasizes that “our music is not religious but it is deeply connected to Iranian philosophy and mysticism, and this makes it a spiritual music. This concert is pure music,” he adds, “it doesn’t have anything to do with politics or social matters. As musicians, our mission is to tell the story of our culture.”
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