Kayhan Kalhor to unveil new instrument in Tehran concert

Vocalist Hamidreza Nurbakhsh along with nine young musicians will accompany Kalhor during the week-long performance beginning on July 14.

In a press conference held at the Aref Music Center on Saturday, Kalhor and Nurbakhsh elaborated on their performance.

“This concert is part of the program entitled ‘A Celebration of Rumi: The Sights and Sounds of Mystic Persia’ performed by the Silk Road Ensemble in honor of Rumi at the Hollywood Bowl, a cultural institution based in Los Angeles in September 2008.

“The Hollywood concert was a 30-minute performance, but this one is due to last over an hour. I think the rhythm existing in the poetry of Rumi will help us in the concert,” Kalhor said.

Kalhor and Nurbakhsh were members of the Silk Road Ensemble, an ensemble of internationally renowned musicians, composers, and arrangers.

Kalhor later explained, “I have not worked with many singers in my previous concerts. Once, I collaborated with master (Mohammadreza) Shajarian and tar virtuoso Hossein Alizadeh, but I have mostly focused on music composition. I think this is a good time to cooperate with a young band since I would like to inject new energy into the body of young Iranian musicians,”

He added, “Nurbakhsh is a talented young vocalist who has worked with several masters, and now it is his time to work with us. I have closely witnessed his progress over the past years. He has concentrated heavily on traditional music and I have the greatest respect for his work. Other young musicians in this band also work hard and I will try to keep this group together for future programs. I like to see young musicians make progress too and I always work to see the release of their albums.”

He later talked about his new instrument the shahkaman and said, “I met Peter Biffin, an leading Australian instrument maker several years ago in Germany and we both had designed new instruments similar to the kamancheh, of which my latest one is the shahkaman.

Peter Biffin is one of Australia’s leading instrument makers, maintaining an international presence at the highest level for the last thirty years. Peter’s reputation has been built on creating instruments with an unusual combination of great subtlety in tone color production with unprecedented power and projection.

“It sounds like a kamancheh, and Alizadeh and I chose to name it shahkaman. There has been years of efforts to complete the instrument and I think it is time for it to find its way into the collection of Iranian musical instruments,” he said.

Nurbakhsh next continued, “I have been collaborating with Kalhor for the last two decades and I have always followed his career.

“In one of the concert tours we had with Kalhor and Alizadeh, Kalhor played the shahkaman and Alizadeh played an instrument similar to a tar. It was a beautiful duet,” Nurbakhsh said.

Kalhor further noted that he is planning to stage the same concert in several other cities in Iran.

Photo: Iranian kamancheh virtuoso Kayhan Kalhor (L) gives details about his new instrument shahkaman during a press conference held on July 3, 2010 at the Aref Music Center in Tehran to explain his upcoming concerts. Singer Hamidreza Nurbakhsh (R) also attends the conference. (ISNA/Mona Hubefekr)

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