Date: Saturday, December 19, 2009
Time: 9:00pm – 11:00pm
Where: Alwan for the Arts (16 Beaver Street,New York)
Tickets: $20, available at the door and online. $15.00 student rush tickets available (with I.D.) at the door only.
Alwan for the Arts, in conjunction with Womens Voices: A Festival Across Genres and Traditions, presents: NEGAR BOOBAN (on Oud & vocals) in “Shab e Yalda” – The Birth-Night of the Sun”.
Alwan is privileged to host one of Iran’s finest musicians, oudist Negar Booban, in her U.S. debut and the final concert of “Women’s Visions: A Festival Across Genres and Traditions.” Partly accompanied by her own voice, Negar will give a solo instrumental oud performance in an expressive conceptualization of “the birth of the Sun”, based on the mythical images in Persian beliefs about “Yalda” night.
Event info: http://www.alwanforthearts.org/event/431
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In Iran, “Shab-e Yalda” or Yalda night is celebrated on the Northern Hemisphere’s longest night of the year, the Winter Solstice. The origin of the word Yalda is “birth”, and by Iranian myth, Yalda was thought to be the birth night of “Mehr” or “Mitra”, a very important deity who gave light to the world. Mitra was always imagined to be riding four white immortal horses through the sky before the Sun, as it rose over the “Alborz” mountains. Thus, Yalda was taken as the birth night for the sun as well as the longest night. To this day, the birth of this prominent deity is still celebrated through all-night story-telling, reciting of poems from Hafez and Ferdowsi and sometimes singing until revelers see the light of dawn, just like their ancestors, waiting for the glory of the Sun to appear.
About Negar Booban:
“Brought up in a family of music lovers and musicians, I had tried to play “santoor” and “setar”, but none were taken seriously. It was only at the age of 18 when I heard the sound of an Oud that I felt a sort of magic, and I just knew that I had to play it.”
“Expression is what I most seek in music. Without discovering a distant or unseen part of the human soul, what can music be?”
“I believe that the whole course of life is a chance to discover, a quest to go through, not a game to play or a contest to win. So, in my music I strongly pursue a path to the inner side, mine or anyone’s, a ray of light to shed on a corner of one’s soul, maybe.”
-Negar Booban
Born in Tehran in 1973, Negar Booban studied at the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Tehran, earning an MA in Architecture with her design of Tehran’s future Conservatory. Focusing on special acoustic design, she concurrently studied music and musical acoustics, becoming interested in the principles of Iranian music of the past. Negar mastered the oud and Iranian radif (a collection of old melodies handed down by masters to students throughout the generations) and since 1994 has worked with numerous ensembles of Iranian classical music. She has given over one hundred performances, including the Fajr and Yas Music Festivals, and made several recordings. Negar is also deeply involved with the art of improvisation, both in traditional dastgah (Persian musical modal system) and in free improvisation on themes of various origins and modes.
Her solo oud album Payaapey (Continuous) was released in August 2008. She holds a PhD in Art Research, with her dissertation on a comparative study of rhythm in Iranian music and Persian language and is currently an instructor of oud at the Tehran Conservatory of Music.
Listen to an oud solo by Negar Booba:
