Motherland Orchestra Broke the Spell of the Covid-19 Restrictions

The Motherland Orchestra staged the first concert since the outbreak of the pandemic under the baton of Nezhat Amiri. The orchestra went on stage on December 23-24, 2021 in memory of Rouhollah Khaleghi and Golnoush Khaleghi at Vahdat Hall, Tehran, Iran. Since the pandemic outbreak, concerts were held online and restrictions were imposed on in-person concerts.

The Motherland Orchestra performed a full-capacity concert which was warmly welcomed by the audience. Observing the Covid-19 protocols and with the collaboration of four soloists, the orchestra performed pieces by Rouhollah Khaleghi, Morteza Mahjoubi, Golnoush Khaleghi, Tofiq Alief, Mehrdad Delnavazi and Behzad Abdi.

The concert project manager was Sadjad Pourghannad, while Ebrahim Ghaedi was the Motherland Orchestra manager and Boroumand Haghighi was the producer and financial manager. The concert singer was Zadbeh (Ghaffar Zabeh) and soloists were Seda Sodeifi: Qanoon, Maryam Khodabakhsh: Oud, Ali Najafi Maleki: Ney and Shima Shahmohammadi: Qeychak. Nezhat Amiri who conducted the orchestra is the first Iranian woman to conduct a state-owned orchestra since the Islamic Revolution of 1979.

The last concert of the Motherland Orchestra dates back to two years ago when an orchestra consisting of women went on stage in the Vahdat Hall garden under the baton of Nezhat Amiri in memory of nurses taking care of Covi-19 patients. The concert which was filmed and available to audience offline featured a piece by the late Iranian Tar player and Iranian classical music composer Aminollah Hossein.
***
Golnoush Khaleghi, the daughter of Rouhollah Khaleghi, was one of the most successful Iranian musicians and a pioneer of conducting orchestras as a woman. She learned to play piano under his father and Maestros such as Hossein Saba, Javad Maroufi and Emanuel Malik-Aslanian. She also receive harmony lessons from Mostafa Kamal Pourtorab. According to the website of the Rouhollah Khaleghi Artistic Center, Golnoush Khaleghi “Golnoush spent three-and-half years at the Akademie Mozarteum in Salzburg, specializing in conducting under the tutelage of Professor Kurt Prestel and Professor Gerhard Wimberger. She has Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in the same field from Oberlin College and the University of Wisconsin, respectively.

“Ms. Khaleghi has worked closely with such renowned conductors as Helmuth Rilling, Robert Fountain, Karol Teutsch, and the late Rouben Gregorian, and has performed in the United States, Europe, Canada, Venezuela, and Iran. She is the founder of the National Iranian Radio and Television Choir (Hamavazan) in Tehran and the Rouhollah Khaleghi Orchestra in Washington DC. Since the cultural upheaval of the Islamic Revolution in 1979, she has been a prominent figure in promoting Persian music and culture through the concerts of the Rouhollah Khaleghi Orchestra and other activities abroad”. (rkac)

In 1985, she established the Rouhollah Khaleghi Orchestra in Washington DC featuring 25 musicians intending to follow her father’s path; she managed to stage several pieces for a national Iranian orchestra; however, the orchestra did not last long.

In 1990, she returned to Iran to rework and stage his father’s pieces, she was not allowed to do it though and only managed to publish “Mey-e Nab” album. She passed away February 2021 in the US with the unfulfilled wish to conduct an orchestra in her home country.

Post a Comment

Required fields are marked *
*
*
Your email is never shared.

Farhad Poupel: The Voice of the Shahnameh in the Orchestras Around the World

In an era when almost no trace of contemporary Iranian music can be heard in international concert halls, except (so-called!) avant-garde works that owe their existence solely to the fashionable slogans of the “pseudo-intellectual” crowd who have seized the already meager resources for performing classical music from the true artists of the field, the numerous performances of Farhad Poupel’s works shine as a ray of hope for lovers of sincere musical art. Without resorting to trendy slogans, he has kept the flame of Iranian classical music alive purely through the power of his artistry.

Five Major Myths About Mozart’s Life

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the renowned Austrian composer, is undoubtedly one of the greatest geniuses in the history of classical music. However, his life is surrounded by numerous myths and legends, some of which are not based on facts. This article explores five of the most common misconceptions about Mozart’s life.

From Past Days…

The Structure of Kurdistan Daf (V)

ehrouz Mohammadi, “Daf and its feasts in Ghaderieh’s Tekyeh” mentions that the outer thickness of arch where studs are located, [is] between one to one and a half centimeters (Mohammadi, 2001: 12). The thickness of arch should be gradually reduced from the installation place of rings to skin (Avazeh of Daf) to create a high volume, clear sound from Daf; also, the connection of arch to skin should not be less than one millimeter, because in this case the skin will be torn due to the sharpness of the wood (Mogharab Samadi, 2009: 79-78). The thickness of wood on the skin side is about two to three millimeters (Tohidi, 2002: 79).

Principles of Playing Violin (VI)

B. applying force: the force needed for putting finger on finger board is applied through finger tips and using the rest of hand set especially wrist is not allowed. To practice this, it is possible to hold violin without the bow and throw the fingers on the finger board from 1-2cm distance; apply force only through finger tips.

Hossein Aslani passed away!

Hossein Aslani, Iranian pianist residing in the US, passed away due to cancer in late January 2020. His last musical activity was an article written for Harmony Talk entitled “Iran amidst musical struggle” in 2016, his memoir entitled “I Play You Again” in the same year and his album “Symbolic Emotion” published by Arganoun Publications in 2014. Here is a brief biography of Hossein Aslani according to his own website:

Is the Iranian National Anthem a Copy? (II)

In response, it should be said that it is better for the national anthem of a country to use the musical material exclusive to that country; however, some problems might come up in doing so the most important of which include: lack of familiarity of other countries’ music performer with the concerned country’s specific music intervals and special musical technique; and secondly, the strangeness of that music to the foreign listener.

Farshad Sanjari, Forgotten Iranian Conductor Met His Tragic End

Farshad Sanjari, one of the most renowned Iranian conductors in the 1970s in Iran died after fire broke in his apartment in Vienna on November 22, 2019. Farshad Sanjari was not involved in politics; however, he was one of the victims of the Iranian Islamic Revolution in 1979. After the victory of the Islamic Revolution, his name was never seen as the conductor of any programmes.

History’s Impact on Evaluating a Work of Art

With this description, we have automatically included a criterion called “History”, Until we know the time of the creation of a work of art, we cannot judge whether it has been easy to create or not. Suppose that, in a historical study, we find a musical work that is similar in compositional techniques (including form, melody, context, and orchestration) to a minor work of the nineteenth century; however, our research proves that, this work dates back to 200 years prior to that date. Can we still consider this work insignificant? Definitely not! So this is where the first use of history-based judgment comes into play.

Transition to Enlightenment: Six Lectures on Mozart’s String Quartets (3)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, a musical prodigy of the Classical era, was deeply influenced by the intellectual currents of the Enlightenment. His exposure to Enlightenment ideas was multifaceted, shaped not only by the cultural milieu of his time but also by the relationships within his family and his own interactions with prominent figures of the Enlightenment. This exploration will delve into Mozart’s acquaintance with Enlightenment ideas through his father’s relationships and his own encounters with influential personalities of the era, including Christian Fürchtegott Gellert, Baron Melchior Grimm, Madame d’Epinay, and Joseph von Sonnenfels. Additionally, the essay will examine the impact of Joseph II’s reforms on Mozart’s life and artistic endeavors.

Iranian Fallacies: Iranian Chords

Finding a way to harmonize the Iranian music has been the subject of controversy among Iranian musicians for a long time. Some believe in the creation of harmonies for Iranian music based on a method which is similar to the tierce harmony; while others have either selected or invented some other methods. There are also some musicians who do not basically agree with the harmonization of the Iranian music.

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.

Parviz Meshkatian’s Heart Beat for People (II)

As such, the young Meshkatian reached the position of a great maestro in the Iranian music. Up until 1997, Meshkatian remained prolific and composed many pieces which were characterized by progressiveness while drawing on the music of the past Iranian musicians. In some of Meshkatian’s works, one can trace the influence of maestros such as Faramarz Payvar; however, this influence is so balanced that one can neither say that Meshkatian is a progressive and deconstructionist composer nor does he use cliché forms in his compositions.