The LSU School of Music Recital Hall will be transported to the Middle East tonight with the entrancing rhythms and exotic notes of classical Iranian music.
Navid Mozaffari, engineering graduate student, and Amirhosein Shadkam, physics graduate student, will perform songs on traditional Iranian instruments including the tombak, a drum, and the santour, a stringed trapezoid.
“With all the bad news about nuclear weapons, it’s important for us to present the good aspects of Iran’s culture,” Mozaffari said.
The musicians were both born in Iran’s capital, Tehran, and both students began musical education in their youth.
Shadkam said it is hard to describe Iranian classical music as it varies greatly.
“It can be happy and it can be sad,” Shadkam said. “It’s influenced by Indian and Mediterranean music, but still has a unique sound.”
The concert will be held in honor of Maestro Faramarz Payvar, a pioneer in Iranian classical music who passed away in 2009. Shadkam said Payvar began transcribing old songs into international music notes about 60 years ago. He said before Payvar, all music within the genre was memorized.
Shadkam and Mozaffari sit side-by-side as they play their music. Shadkam slaps the stretched deer hide of the tombak resting in his lap while Mozaffari strikes the 72 strings of the santour with a small wooden baton in each hand. Mozaffari said the tombak and santour are traditionally paired together in classical Iranian music.
Each instrument is crafted with wood from walnut trees, Mozaffari said. He said Iranians prize the dark walnut wood because it’s malleable, which helps it to resist warping in humid climates.
The musicians said they are looking forward to their performance and aren’t worried about a cultural barrier between themselves and the audience.
“Music is a language to connect people all over the world,” Shadkam said.
The concert begins at 7 p.m. in the LSU School of Music Recital Hall. Tickets are $10 for University students and $20 for nonstudents. Proceeds will go toward the cost of renting the venue as well as the Iranian Student Association at LSU.
