The warm tones of four-time Grammy Award nominated Iranian maestro Kayhan Kalhor’s kamancheh – a traditional four-stringed, upright Persian fiddle – met New York-based string quartet Brooklyn Rider for the first time as part of globe-trotting superstar cellist Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Ensemble.
In the exhilarating collaboration which resulted from this encounter, sublime Persian folk melodies shine through American composer Colin Jacobsen’s Western classical inventions, blending with Kalhor’s kamancheh to create a cross-cultural landscape where it’s easy to get ecstatically lost.
Kalhor and the quartet released the album Silent City in 2008, featuring the 30-minute long symphonic piece which gives the album its title – written by Kalhor to commemorate the harrowing destruction of the Kurdish town of Hallabjah in Iraq in 1988 at the hands of Saddam Hussein. ‘Experimentalism is always more rewarding when it leads to resounding emotional depth, and this is as good an example as you'll find of a group of musicians achieving that ideal balance’Pitchfork ‘There is little in the music world as awe-inspiring as when classical musicians jump head-first into a new musical experience’ Gramophone ‘Furious energy and slow-moving harmonic shifts… emotionally powerful’ The Scotsman
Produced by the Barbican in association with the Swan Promotions and UKIFF
Barbican Contemporary Music
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