The 4th Iranian Festival of Music Websites and Weblogs

The 4th Iranian Festival of Music Websites and Weblogs was held in Niavaran Cultural Center, in Tehran, Iran on Feb. 28th, 2015. The initiator of the festival was Sajjad Pourghanad, Iranian music writer, researcher, founder of the festival and Persian setar and tar player.

At the begenning of the program, the presenter of the last day of the festival, Younes Mahmoudi, came on the stage to invite Saeed Yaghoobian (Persian tar), Dr. Peyman Nasehpour (Azerbaijani dayereh), and Shayan Yazdizadeh (tonbak) to perform the Azerbaijani art music pieces on the stage. After this music performance, the clip specially made for the 4th Festival was presented. Then Mahmoudi invited Seyyed Abbas Sajjadi, the CEO of Niavaran Cultural Center to deliver his speech on the Center’s activities and the 4th Festival.

After Sajjadi’s speech, the Choir of Arasbaran Culture-House came on the stage to perform some pieces of Handel, conducted by Serjik Mirzaeian. After the performance of the Choir, Dr. Mohammad Reza Azadehfar came on the stage to give a speech as an agent of the Juries of 4th Festival.

After Azadehfar’s speech, Peyman Soltani (Persian tar), Mehdi Emami (vocals), and Shaahin Mohajeri (tonbak) gave a Persian art music performance. Then Shahram Saremi (Iranian kamancheh player and artistic director of Arasbaran Culture-House) was invited to come on the stage to be appreciated for his help to the previous annuals of Iranian Festivals of Music Websites and Weblogs by dedicating to him the Statue and Letter of Recognition of the Festival.

Then a couple of musicians and music researchers were invited to come on the stage to deliver the awards of winners listed as follows:

1. Music website winner: MusiceIranian.ir run by Ebrahim Molaie
2. Music weblog winner: Neyrizmusic.blogfa.com by Saeed Mostafizi

Winners of Research Articles: 1. Nasim Ahmadian 2. Jafar Goudarzi 3. Shaahin Mohajeri – Soudeh Mofidi

Winners of Journalistic Articles: 1. Vahid Eftekhar Hosseini 2. Hossein Salimi

Winners of Notes on Music: 1. Babak Valipour 2. Ali Najafi Maleki 3. Ali Sharifi

Winners of Music Critiques: 1. Saeed Yaghoobian 2. Farhoud Safarzadeh 3. Mohammad Javad Sahafi – Meysam Pourtajrishi

Other Winners of Festival include: Kamyar Salavati, Farshad Tavakoli, Mehdi Forouzian, Mohammad Khalilian, and Bita Yari.

The final part of the 4th Festival was the performance of Arghanoun Flute Ensemble conducted by Ebrahim Nazari. The Arghanoun Flute Ensemble performed some pieces such as “Ninay-va-Bi Nay”, a Lorestani folk song and “Raghs-e-Dayereh” composed by Heshmat Sanjari.

The website of this Iranian Festival for Music Websites and Weblogs is: MusicFestival.ir. This time, the juries for this competitive festival were Mohsen Ghanebasiri (Iranian an epistemologist, chemist, author and theorist on economy, culture, arts (cybernetics) and management), Shahram Saremi (Iranian kamancheh player), Dr. Mohammad Reza Azadehfar, Dr. Pirooz Arjmand, and Dr. Narges Zaker Jafari. Beside the helps of Shahram Saremi, one of the other musicians who also supported this festival was Dr. Mohammad Sarir, Iranian composer and pianist.

Lilly Afshar, Iranian Guitar Legend, passed away

The text you are reading is about Hamed Fathi, a guitarist and one of Lilly Afshar’s students, which was previously published on the Persian website HarmonyTalk.com:

Mohammad Esmaili passes away

Master Mohammad Ismaili, a prominent musician and renowned tombak player, passed away on August 13, 2023, after battling an illness in the ICU of Rasoul Akram Hospital. His funeral will take place on Thursday, August 17, at 10 am in front of Vahdat Hall, and he will be laid to rest in the Artists’ Section of Behesht Zahra Cemetery.

From Past Days…

Hassan Kassai, Ney Virtuoso

The name of Maestro Hassan Kassai is so vehemently intertwined with Ney (Persian reed flute) that one cannot imagine one without the other immediately coming into mind. Ney is one of the instruments which went through a lot of ups and downs in the history of the Iranian music since the time of Sassanid kings to the time when shepherds found playing it consoling when they took their cattle for grazing. However, Nay could never demonstrate its main capacities to gain a stable position among the musicians and the people like other instruments including Oud, Tar, Santour, all sorts of bowed string instruments and plucked string instruments.

Principles of Violin Playing (VII)

4.3.1.3 Regarding the great linear distance and the unusual distance between the first and forth fingers, the first finger while playing the doubles of ninth and tenth interval, can be twisted in the knuckle area and the point mentioned in 3.1.2.5 paragraph in relation to the way first finger is placed indicating that the first joint of this finger in back of hand must be in line with the direction of forearm and left hand is not true here.

Iranian Fallacies – School of Vaziri

Iranian Fallacies – School of Vaziri

The term “School of Vaziri” is often used in writings on Iranian music, but the exact meaning of the term is not clear; some of the authors have used the term to only refer to the group of Vaziri’s students, including a large group of his conservatory students and his Tar students such as Abolhassan Saba, Rouhollah Khaleghi, Ahmad Foroutan Rad, Hossein Sanjari, Heshmat Sanjari and others. But can we consider all Vaziri’s students as followers of his school of thought? This is definitely a mistake, because we know that some of Vaziri’s students have chosen a completely different path than that of Vaziri.

Interview with the Makers of the New Qeychak (II)

Regarding the classification of a new instrument in an instrument family, one can point to a number of fundamental issues, one of the most obvious of which is the instrument’s visual features. If we look at how the new instrument has changed compared to its historical versions, the set of visual elements that link the instrument to the Qeychak family becomes apparent. But other characteristics such as the geometric dimensions of the instrument, characteristics of the instrument’s various parts and how they relate to each other, its systematic performance, its sound range (compared to modern versions), the material and color of the sound, the way it is played and the like, can be considered in order to classify the instrument in the Qeychak family.

Polyphony in Iranian Music (III)

In heterophonic variant, two performers perform a single melody simultaneously and change it. Performing and changing a single melody simultaneously by two performers leads to the coincidence of different voices.

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:

Banan: the Artist of the Age

Gholam Hossein Banan was born in 1911 in Tehran. He was born in an affluent art-loving family who were Naser al-Din Shah Qajar (1848-1896)’s relative. The Qajar King was his mother’s uncle on her father’s side. He learnt his first lessons in music while his father sang Iranian avaz (improvised rhythmic-free singing), he then attended classes by the renowned Iranian composer, Morteza Neydavoud (1900-1990) along with his sisters; the composer is, therefore, considered as his first teacher. He then learnt Iranian avaz under the supervision of Mirza Taher Zia Resaee (Zia-o Zakerin) and Naser Seif in an oral manner.

The 4th Iranian Festival of Music Websites and Weblogs

The 4th Iranian Festival of Music Websites and Weblogs was held in Niavaran Cultural Center, in Tehran, Iran on Feb. 28th, 2015. The initiator of the festival was Sajjad Pourghanad, Iranian music writer, researcher, founder of the festival and Persian setar and tar player.

Simorgh Criticised

Simorgh (Simorq) Orchestra was founded by the renowned Iranian composer, Hamid Motebassem, in 2011. Simorgh Orchestra is the largest orchestra featuring Iranian national instruments. Although the orchestra established by Master Hossein Dehlavi, the great Iranian composer, in 1993 was larger than Simorgh Orchestra, it only featured the Iranian plucked string instruments unlike the latter one. The first album which was recorded by the Orchestra, conducted under Motebassem’s baton, was his Simorq based on Zal story from Shahnameh by Ferdowsi, the great Iranian poet.

Polyphony in Iranian Music (I)

Despite the fact that Iranian folk music (regional music of Iran), like the Radif of Iranian traditional music, is monophonic and follows heterophony in principal, we experience polyphonic forms, albeit, majorly unconscious.