Category Archives: Reviews

Concert review: Taikoza banged the big barrel-sized taiko here among the steel and concrete skyscrapers of New York…

Date: Saturday, May 5, 2012
Venue: The Manhattan Movement and Arts Center
Videos and photos: by Sohrab Saadat Ladjevardi
Concert review by Jim Hoey

Taiko is an ancient form of Japanese drumming that most New Yorkers have no familiarity with, yet recently the Taikoza group, led by Swiss-born director Marco Lienhard, banged the big barrel-sized  taiko here among the steel and concrete skyscrapers of New York in the time-honored, Japanese, tradition of cleansing the Spring atmosphere of evil spirits through the banging of drums, dancing, and playing of flutes (shakahachi and fue), and a Japanese 13 strings instrument (koto).

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Concert review: Iran’s Pavarotti and music actvist Mohammad Reza Shajarian and the Shahnaz Ensemble at Town Hall.

Date: April 20, 2012
Venue: Town Hall (NY)

Text by Aida Shahghasemi 

A few weeks after his son, Homayoun (read review here), Mohammad Reza Shajarian and the Shahnaz Ensemble gave a concert at Town Hall last month which portrayed creativity and innovation within the realm of Persian classical music.

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Concert review: Anoushka Shankar forging the link – separated by a thousand years – between Spanish and Indian music…

Date: April 6 – 8, 2012
Venue: City Winery (NY)
Concert review by Dawoud Kringle

The idea of blending two different cultural influences in art or music is not new. In fact, the idea has been going on for centuries. It is only now that it is so noticeable, due to the process being accelerated by communication and other technology.
A recent intriguing step in this path is the CD and tour by Anoushka Shankar; daughter of illustrious sitarist and musical ambassador Ravi Shankar. No stranger to multicultural experiments, Shankar has brought about an intriguing blend of Indian raga and Spanish flamenco. According to historical evidence, flamenco’s distant roots are in 9th century India. Punjabi “untouchables” fled persecution and wandered the Middle East and Asia; eventually settling in Europe. There has been, however, little speculation of the common roots of the theory of this music.

 

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Concert review: Mohammad-Reza Lotfi – the virtuoso tar and setar player came after almost ten years of absence from New York City!!!

Date: April 15, 2012
Venue: Symphony Space (NY)
Concert review by Aida Shahghasemi   
Mohammad-Reza Lotfi, the virtuoso tar and setar player came to the Symphony Space stage on W. 96th street after almost ten years of absence from New York City. As he regularly does, Lotfi walked on with his white cotton shirt and pants and gracefully carried himself to the point of readiness, legs crossed, tar in hand,  looking up at another world for the initial inspiration. On his side, he had his loyal tombak player, Mohammad Ghavihelm.

Courtesy of World Music Institut
Courtesy of World Music Institut

Lotfi began his career over forty years ago. He was born in 1947, in Gorgan, a northern province of Iran. Encouraged by a musical family, he delved deep into playing tar and soon he was the student of some of Iran’s biggest traditional music masters such as Aliakbar Shahnazi, Habibollah Salehi, Hossein Dehlavi, Abdollah Davami, Sa’id Hormozi, and Nourali Boroumand. His studies carried him to Western classical music conservatories, where conducting, composing, and orchestral membership became additional areas of study and fascination. Lotfi rose out of a fertile cultural and musical era in Iran. The seventies holds memories of influential individuals such as Dr. Dariush Safvat and initiations such as the Center for Preservation and Propagation of Iranian Music, from which some of the most prominent Persian Classical musicians of today prospered. These include Mohammad-Reza Lotfi, Hossein Alizadeh, Parisa, Hossein Omoumi, Naser Farhangfar, Dariush Tala’i, Majid Kiani, and Mahmoud Farahmand.

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Concert review: Simon Shaheen – The Call, Songs of Arab Pride, Dignity and Liberation!

Date: April 10, 2012
Location: CUNY Graduate Center/ Live@365 World Music Series, presented by Elebash, curated by Isabel Soffer
Reviewed by Brian Prunka
Simon Shaheen is well-known among Arabic music enthusiasts as one of the most gifted living performers on the oud, the fretless near-eastern antecedent to the lute and as a superb violinist.  For several decades he has worked tirelessly to increase awareness and understanding among Western musicians and audiences of the rich Arabic musical tradition, and encouraged Arab musicians to embrace their musical heritage. I became aware of Simon in the late 1990s when I first began learning the oud, and learned of the annual Arabic Music Retreat that he directs each summer.  Simon and his colleagues, such as Ali Jihad Racy and Bassam Saba, introduced to me and countless others the remarkable depth and richness of the Arabic Tradition.  While my opinions on this performance may not be wholly objective, I hope that my intimate familiarity with the playing styles of the musicians will compensate to some degree for that deficiency.

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