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Composer/Conductor Kaveh Mirhosseini & Government Director Saba Yousefi Speak About JAM Orchestra’s Could 11 Live performance


The JAM Orchestra, performed by Kaveh Mirhosseini performs on the College of Toronto Walter Corridor in January 2025 (Picture courtesy of JAM Orchestra)

After a nicely acquired efficiency on the College of Toronto New Music Competition in January, the JAM Orchestra returns to the stage on Could 11 to carry out works by up to date Iranian composers. Kaveh Mirhosseini, in a collaboration with the Orchestra, will conduct, together with considered one of his personal items.

Different items on this system embrace Iranian-Canadian composer and pianist Iman Habibi’s Beloved of the Sky, together with works by Heshmat Sanjari, Afarin Mansouri, Shahab Paranj, Golfam Khayam, and Reza Vali that mix Iranian and Western influences.

We spoke to composer/conductor Kaveh Mirhosseini and JAM Orchestra Government Director Saba Yousefi in regards to the live performance, and the music.

Kaveh Mirhosseini conducts his composition Allah-Could Khani, October 22, 2023 in Tehran, Iran:

Kaveh Mirhosseini & Saba Yousefi: The Interview

The total program for the live performance consists of:

  • Dance of Dayereh by Heshmat Sanjari (Association for Strings by Kaveh Mirhosseini)
  • Beloved of the Sky by Iman Habibi
  • Majnoon Naboodam by Afarin Mansouri
  • Choopi by Shahab Paranj
  • Simorgh by Golfam Khayam
  • Funebre by Reza Vali
  • Folks Songs by Reza Vali (Association for Strings by Kaveh Mirhosseini)
  • Baba Karam by Kaveh Mirhosseini

Persian music is rooted in custom.

“I feel Persian up to date music tries to explain the heritage and tradition,” explains Mirhosseini. He selected the music on this system.

“I feel we try to showcase our heritage,” provides Saba. “Each bit has been chosen fastidiously.”

The purpose can be to attach Western and Japanese cultures. Conventional Iranian music, Kaveh explains, is a product of a multicultural society that consists of many various tribes and peoples.

“It’s huge and numerous,” Saba says.

The orchestra itself is numerous. The ensemble consists of a string orchestra with piano, percussion, and Iranian-Canadian soprano Saina Alikhani, who’s at the moment learning at McGill College.

“The entire goal of this orchestra is to have a multicultural orchestra,” Kaveh provides. These not already acquainted realized to carry out Persian intervals (primarily based on quarter-tones) in a recent music context. For the event in January, the ensemble invited composers comparable to Shahab Paranj, of UCLA, and Reza Vali, a school member of the Faculty of Music at Carnegie Mellon College

Iman Habibi, an Azrieli Prize laureate, has develop into a buddy of the ensemble.

“[He’s] an excellent Canadian composer,” Kaveh says, including that their collaborations will proceed.

“We have now two girls composers,” Saba factors out.

They embrace Golfam Khayam, an Iranian whose star is rising in Europe. Her works have been carried out by Barbara Hannigan, Orchestre de la Radio France, ICE ensemble, London Symphony Orchestra, Stephan Schmidt (Basel), Ivan Podyomov (precept Oboist of Concertgebouw), and lots of others.

“She has develop into actually well-known over the past couple of years,” Saba says.

Toronto-based Dr. Afarin Mansouri can be represented in this system together with her piece Majnoon Naboodam. Mansouri is the guiding pressure behind Cultureland Opera Collective.

The late Heshmat Sanjari’s piece Dance of Dayereh was written for percussion (carried out by soloist Farzad Khorshid-savar), and an association for strings by Kaveh.

Mirhosseini’s personal piece Baba Karam was given its world premiere on the College of Toronto New Music Competition in January.

“It’s one of the vital necessary festivals in Canada,” he says. Kaveh was invited to create an ensemble for the event, an Iranian music evening. The varied viewers was appreciative. “They actually related to the Iranian music,” he provides.

Baba Karam is a sort of Iranian dance that’s usually carried out at celebrations, representing a cultural character. The dance portrays a sure group of Iranian males who have been well-known within the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and have been characterised by a form of city tough and tumble code of ethics. They stood up for the poor and weak, and prized qualities comparable to generosity and self-sufficiency.

The Baba Karam music, and unique story, date again to the Qajar dynasty, from 1794 to 1925. Whereas there are a number of variations immediately, it tends to revolve round a person and his love for a girl.

Kaveh created an animated brief that’s proven throughout the efficiency of the piece.

“Every Iranian is aware of this piece and this historical past,” he says. “For me, surprisingly, the non-Iranian viewers favored this.”

Sharing Cultures

Each see the orchestra as having a form of mission. “It’s actually necessary for us to develop Iranian music right here,” Kaveh says. He talks of making a cultural bridge between Iran and Canada, and he notes that that orchestra members themselves signify Canadian variety, together with each Jewish and Muslim members.

“We wish to collaborate with Canadian composers,” he provides, noting that earlier collaborators have included composer Christos Hatzis.

“Our nation, Iran, means multicultural. Canada is multicultural.”

  • Discover tickets and different particulars in regards to the Could 11 efficiency at Grace Church on-the-Hill [HERE].

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