A brief examination of Ardavan Kamkar’s Santour playing style

This entry was written by Ali Farahani

I still think of those fish in a crystal bowl for the Haft sin table and those disappointed old men who went out to sell blackfish.

This subtlety and great imagination become the basis of the work “The Fish for the New Year” A clear music with clear expression.

“The Sea” was released in the late 1980s and then “The Fish for the New Year” promised a musician with a different approach than the path of the past, using techniques and songs of Iranian music and Kurdish folk music. This music brought a fundamental change in contemporary Iranian music, and also especially in Santour playing contemporary style.

“Ardavan Kamkar” was born in July 1968 in Sanandaj to a family of culture, and art. He started Santour playing when he was four years old. He studied Santour with his father, Hassan Kamkar, and he immigrated with his family to Tehran in 1980. In his youth, he presented the Santour Concertino with his brother Houshang Kamkar, on the album “In the Highest of Dawn”
The Sea was composed before 1985 and then he performed in 1990 in Vahdat Concert Hall and then was released to the music market.

“The Fish for the New Year”, which was released in 2005.
He had some combinations with other composers such as a Santour player in the album “Night, Silence and Desert” by Kayhan Kalhor and “Mandir” Album composed by Mohammad Ali Kianinejad, Touraj Mansouri’s “Iranian Landscape” Soundtrack and Santuri movie directed by Daryoush Mehrjouei and some other soundtracks are among his works. The music of this movie had a profound effect on the popularization and widespread popularity of the Santoor instrument and even in the field of instrumentation and construction of the Santour, which made this instrument penetrate into the cultural depths of society.
The book Notes of Santuri film was published in 2023.

Album of “Diamond Fine Grains” in 2013 Enjoying and looking at local Baluchi and Afghan themes The publication of Ardavan Kamkar’s Pieces Collection in 2015 ended the years of waiting for enthusiasts to play the modern Santour style ،a specialized book with a new outlook on the techniques of playing Santoor has increased the sound and play of the Santour.

In recent years, music has always seemed to be remarkably backward compared to poetry and literature, and perhaps one of the reasons for this is the lack of new and knowledgeable personalities of today, looking at distant horizons who have realized the necessity of newness and from opposition, and blaming old retrogressive thoughts.

Fearless and fearful of those who do not fear Evolution and innovation are urgent necessities and necessities in the arts that in each period should communicate with its audience at the same time Ardavan Kamkar is a remarkable and avant-garde figure such as Nima in contemporary poetry, Mohammad Ali Jamalzadeh in literature and short stories, and Alinaghi Vaziri, who is considered one of the pioneers of reform in Iranian music and Santour players.

The use of unconventional tuning and scales how derived from Western music knowledge along with familiar themes and themes, parallel movements of the right and left hand. Rapid execution of notes with the preservation of the clarity of the melody of the pieces in both hands and equal abilities of the right and left hands is one of the characteristics of his playing.

He has created a new path of playing the Santoor of contemporary times through a new transformation in Persian music and imaginary, magical and very audacious music.
A new expression mixed with analysis and clear emotion has attracted many listeners and enthusiasts
In Iranian music, and today it is still fresh after thirty years and its green buds have grown to become a great
Tree in Iranian music.

Post a Comment

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

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.

Bahma Rajabi Passed Away!

Bahman Rajabi, the renowned tonbak (Persian goblet drum) player and educator, passed away at his home at the age of 86 due to a heart condition. He was the founder of a distinctive school of tonbak playing, and his teaching methods have been widely used by instructors of the instrument for decades..

From Past Days…

Harmony in the Iranian Music (II)

One of his works was the translation of Harmony, which was carried out with the help of Mozayyan al-Dowleh, and included a pamphlet based on which he used to teach the subject to the students of the school of music; the pamphlet was never published. It was, in fact, a kind of simple harmony for the piano with no quadriads, it rather featured the engagement of both the right hand and the left hand which was being taught at the music school for the first time. Salar-Mo’azez also composed military marches and hymns for schools, which he harmonized to be performed and piano. Likewise, he used to compose for military orchestras.

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.

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.

Behzad Abdi’s opera Rumi was physically released by Naxos

Composing a traditional Iranian opera using the Iranian modal system, dastgāh, has always been my dream. I first approached this by composing an opera called Ashura followed by the operas Rumi and Hafez. I believe that in order to attract an international audience for Iranian opera, it is essential to fuse dastgāh with Western classical forms.

Ali Rahbari & Recording Iranian Symphonic Compositions

In the few days prior to the New Iranian year (March 2015), the news of the revival of Tehran Symphony Orchestra under Ali (Alexander) Rahbari’s conductorship was announced. Ali Rahbari, who served as assistant to Herbert von Karajan in Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra at a very young age, was also invited to conduct Tehran Symphony Orchestra in 2005; however, the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s government put an end to his collaboration with this Orchestra. Recently, it was announced that Rahbari is invited to conduct an orchestra in the U.S.

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.

New Technique for Playing Classical Guitar (II)

When the author was working on the piece “Playing Love” by Ennio Morricone (from the legend of 1900), he realized a failure of the Lip Technique. Needing to play a chord in the 14th position of the guitar and in order to complete the harmony, it is necessary to play a harmonic note on the 7th or 5th position; it was not possible to touch the string to play this harmonic note, because the Lip Technique is used for getting the notes and not to touch the string and producing harmonic notes. Naturally, the only possible way to touch the string was to use the nose at the required position and playing the note with the right hand, and this was the best option the author found to how to play such harmonic notes, and where the Nose Technique was generated.

The First Saba Student Music Festival Concluded in Tehran

Preparations for Saba Student Music Festival started in the summer of 2016; the Student Music Festival will be held annually by the students of music at Arts University. The first part of the closing ceremony of the Festival was dedicated to the celebration of the life, work and strives by Maestro Hossein Dehlavi to upgrade the level of music as an academic discipline. The name of the award-winning students and ensembles were announced at the second part of the ceremony.

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.

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.