The Whole Music Experience

Kayhan Kalhor and Ali Bahrami Fard I Will Not Stand Alone World Village I have a small pile of CDs sitting next to my laptop in which Iranian spike-fiddle player Kayhan Kalhor appears. Since reviewing Ghazal’s Rain on ECM in 2003, in which Kalhor performed in a musical exchange with sitarist Shujaat Husain Khan, I have come across a recording each year featuring Kahlhor in collaborations with Iranian, Turkish, American (Brooklyn Rider, a string quartet and Yo-Yo Ma), and Indian musicians.  And in each of these recordings, the spike fiddle player (aka kamancheh), offers a transcendental performance. If you see Kayhan Kalhor’s name gracing the cover of a CD, make sure you give that recording a good listen.  Otherwise you pass up an opportunity to hear truly exotic music fired by the heart and soul of its performer. The most recent recording, or musical chapter, I Will Not Stand Alone , brings its listeners a ray of hope, but only after having suffered the torme...

  image missing Kayhan Kalhor Brooklyn Rider Silent City World Village I have over the years heard several recordings by Iranian kamanche master Kayhan Kalhor. The first recording to capture my ears was the recording, Rain by Ghazal which casted an enchanting spell over me. I have also heard his work with The Dastan Ensemble and his recording The Wind with Erdal Erzincan. Kalhor has proven not only his mastership over his exotic instrument, but also his adaptability to a variety of musical genres. That is not to say that he performs his instrument in a variety of genres, but that he fuses his tradition with those from other cultures. And since I have grown to admire Kahlor's work, I feel excited when I see his name gracing yet another CD cover. On Silent City , once again we see Kalhor fusing Persian classical music with another music tradition--European classical meets the Silk Road. The musicians in Brooklyn Rider fall into an experimental-avant-classical style, that ...