Behzad Ranjbaran Playback Fall 2007
Rated • 1 review • music, heritage • ascap.com
Epic Proportions
Excerpts:
"Iranian-born composer Behzad Ranjbaran's work highlights both music's timelessness and timeliness"
"... his music remains deeply rooted in the legends and history of his homeland. The musical cross-pollination has yielded cinematic-sounding works like The Persian Trilogy, a Grammy-nominated recording by the London Symphony Orchestra (Delos Records) from 2004 and more recent pieces titled Shiraz and Isfahan, inspired by visits to two ancient Persian cities. Well aware of the hostility between the current governments of the United States and Iran, Ranjbaran sees his role as an artist is, in major part, promoting understanding between cultures."
"You have to keep in mind that Iran is the land of legends. The culture goes back several thousand years, and the supernatural legends contain moral lessons transferred from one generation to another.
These legends predate Islam in Persia?
Yes, they go back thousands of years. And most of these stories were collected in the epic poems called Shahnameh: The Persian Book Of Kings, written in the 11th Century by the poet, Ferdowsi. He collected all these stories and turned it into the longest epic poem ever written -- 65,000 couplets. He spent 35 years of his life working on it. From the moment that I entered the Tehran Music Conservatory at age 9, one ambition that I had in life was to capture these stories in music. And I think all along that affected the kind of graphic quality that my music has because the influence was just so strong in early years."
Excerpts:
"Iranian-born composer Behzad Ranjbaran's work highlights both music's timelessness and timeliness"
"... his music remains deeply rooted in the legends and history of his homeland. The musical cross-pollination has yielded cinematic-sounding works like The Persian Trilogy, a Grammy-nominated recording by the London Symphony Orchestra (Delos Records) from 2004 and more recent pieces titled Shiraz and Isfahan, inspired by visits to two ancient Persian cities. Well aware of the hostility between the current governments of the United States and Iran, Ranjbaran sees his role as an artist is, in major part, promoting understanding between cultures."
"You have to keep in mind that Iran is the land of legends. The culture goes back several thousand years, and the supernatural legends contain moral lessons transferred from one generation to another.
These legends predate Islam in Persia?
Yes, they go back thousands of years. And most of these stories were collected in the epic poems called Shahnameh: The Persian Book Of Kings, written in the 11th Century by the poet, Ferdowsi. He collected all these stories and turned it into the longest epic poem ever written -- 65,000 couplets. He spent 35 years of his life working on it. From the moment that I entered the Tehran Music Conservatory at age 9, one ambition that I had in life was to capture these stories in music. And I think all along that affected the kind of graphic quality that my music has because the influence was just so strong in early years."
