Interview with Farhad Poupel (II)

HT: Please tell us more about this piece and your background with this orchestra.
FP
: My acquaintance with the eminent American pianist, Jeffrey Biegel, was made through my piano work, Fantasia on One Note.
Fantasia on One Note was my first professional work for piano, which had its world premiere by the great pianist Peter Jablonski in Sweden, and it has been performed by various pianists in the UK, Germany, France, and the Czech Republic. The recording of this work has also been broadcast on the Dutch public radio, NPR Radio 4.
Since 1999, the prominent American pianist and professor at the Brooklyn Conservatory, Jeffrey Biegel, after working with Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, the first Pulitzer Prize-winning female composer, began to collaborate with the most prominent American composers on new commissions for solo and orchestra performances. This includes Kenneth Fuch, Richard Danielpour and… I was the first non-American composer that worked with him. After some talk, we came to the story of Bijan and Manijeh, and after my explanation about the Shahnameh, he suggested the use of the Persian choir. I myself did not expect to be able to use Ferdowsi’s poems in Farsi, so I eagerly accepted.
The Windows Symphony Orchestra in Canada was the first professional orchestra to perform my work, Zayandeh Rud for string orchestra in April 2019 (This work could have had its world premiere by Deutsche Radio Philharmonie; however, the concert was cancelled unfortunately). The orchestra performed Zayndeh Rud in seven concerts conducted by Daniel Wiley (Daniel Wiley is now the assistant conductor of the Cincinnati Orchestra and will soon be performing my Childhood Memories under his direction with the Cincinnati Youth Orchestra), and since then, I’m having a close relationship with this orchestra.
HT: Will this piece be performed by other orchestras as well?
FP
: Yes, it will be performed with Key Chorale in February 2024 in Florida. This work could have been performed with the Cincinnati Youth Orchestra, which unfortunately was cancelled due to planning for the choir, and the Childhood Memories will be performed instead. Probably, other orchestras will perform The Legend Bijan and Manijeh in the future, which will be announced.
HT: The complete audio file or the video of this concert has not been released yet; is there any reasons behind this
?
FP: Unfortunately, we have not yet been able to release the recording of the premiere footage due to specific laws in Canada and Ontario regarding the release of the recording. But the Florida performance of this work will be released.
HT: Have you been happy with this commission and will you continue working with them?
FP: Windows Symphony Orchestra is a professional and flexible orchestra (the premiere was done well with only two rehearsals), especially due to its conductor and music director, Robert Franz, who has previously worked with the Iranian composer, Behzad Ranjbaran.
HT: You are one of Dr. Mohammad Saeed Sharifian’s most successful pupils; do you still find his influence in your work
?
FP: You are very kind. He influenced me enormously, from composing to understanding music and even how to look at life.
A very significant point was his freedom in education so that each of his students has a different philosophy and style from each other. I had the honour of being his student for five and a half years and if I were born again, I would definitely repeat the same choice.

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Parva, Iranian Singer, Passes Away!

Parva, a singer of Iranian music, has passed away after a period of illness. In recent years, she had been residing in both Iran and Austria.

Iraj Passes Away!

Iraj (Hossein Khajeh-Amiri), born on January 1, 1933, in Natanz, and one of the most renowned figures in Iranian vocal music, passed away at the age of 94 after several months of illness. He was born into an artistic and cultivated family; his ancestor was a celebrated singer during the era of Nasser al-Din Shah Qajar, and his father, who himself possessed a fine voice and was well-versed in the radifs (modal systems) of Persian music, devoted years to training his son’s voice. In his early youth, Iraj also participated in Ta’ziyeh (religious passion plays) and learned the subtleties of vocal performance step by step from Ta’ziyeh performers who had mastered the radifs and modes.

From Past Days…

Interview with Farhad Poupel (II)

Fantasia on One Note was my first professional work for piano, which had its world premiere by the great pianist Peter Jablonski in Sweden, and it has been performed by various pianists in the UK, Germany, France, and the Czech Republic. The recording of this work has also been broadcast on the Dutch public radio, NPR Radio 4.

Iranian Fallacies – Global Performance

One of the most important criteria for measuring the quality of a piece of classical music is number of times the piece has been performance by different ensembles and orchestras in different eras. This belief has become so pervasive in some societies, such as Iranian society, that it is considered the only criterion for measuring the quality of a piece of classical music.

A few steps on the “Road to Bach”

The world of music has unparalleled respect for Bach. Bach is considered the spiritual father of classical music; Bach’s great position is due not only to his great achievements in the fields of harmony, counterpoint, and compositional sciences but also to his respect for and adherence to the artistic principles of classical music. In the history of classical music, it is recorded that Bach walked about fifty kilometers to listen to the music played by the great German organist Dieterich Buxtehude, and this is the path that every idealistic classical music student should walk.

The Legacy of Khosrow Jafarzadeh

This year marks the fifth anniversary of the passing of Khosrow Jafarzadeh (Khosrow Djafar-Zadeh), a distinguished architect and pioneering researcher of Iranian music, whose contributions to the magazine “Harmony Talk” have left an indelible mark on the field. The absence of this remarkable individual has significantly impacted the expansion and advancement of his theories, which are heralded as some of the most progressive in the history of Iranian music

The Mystery of Messiah

Antonio Stradivari (1644 – 18 December 1737) was an Italian luthier and is considered the most significant and greatest artisan in this field.

Principles of Violin Playing (X)

Creating sound continuity between two notes in the source and destination positions when left hand position changes and “two different finger numbers” are involved is called portamento. Portamento can be performed on single string or two neighboring strings and with hand moving on fingerboard either upward or downward.

Principles of Violin Playing (III)

Violin players should always pay attention to the proper position of the left thumb and other points related to it and to its joining point to the palm.

Interview with the Makers of the New Qeychak (III)

In this project, my specialized responsibility  was the basic drawings of the desired instrument with the help of engineering and mechanical software.  I have also the carried out phases related to engineering designs, related variables, and volume and weight calculations under Mr. Ziaei’s direct supervision from the very beginning. Regarding the challenges of this work, suffice it to say that the set of designs for the instrument lasted more than 9 months in the final stage of the project only.

Polyphony in Iranian Music (II)

With regard to each polyphonic form, only one specific and distinguished example is analyzed. These polyphonic forms are as follows:

From the Last Instrumentalist to the First Composer (I)

Music as an art has its own special history; emergence of a singer, of an instrumentalist and then the emergence of the strong character of a composer covers three significant phases of the art of music. With the emergence of composer which was simultaneous with the emergence of the language of music, this art managed to offer a domain for criticism for its composer; a procedure which led to a magnificent variety and evolution in musical production. Even though the conflicts between singers and instrumentalists have not met their end in the Iranian society and while singers can achieve high, instrumentalists have yet to play behind curtains . In a special era, with the efforts of musicians such as Ali Naghi Vaziri (1887-1979) and Rouhollah Khaleghi (1906-1965), glimmers of a composing era started to glow bearing fruit in Khaleghi’s achievement as Iran’s first professional composer. Khaleghi made his reputation as a composer while Vaziri deserved to pioneer this path. By then Vaziri was well-known as a Tar player.