WCW Concert: Enchanting Beats - Middle East Ensemble

 City University London's Middle East Ensemble perform ancient celebratory and ritualistic rhythmic cycles used in the music from the Middle East.

The rhythmic cycles traced back to early 13th century are performed on Daf frame drum, double-headed base Dohol drum, goblet shaped tombak drum. The three-string lute, tanbour, accompanying the ensemble will illustrate the melodic themes of this performance as inspired by the ancient maqam music of Kurdistan as well as the classical Persian music repertoire, known as "Radeef".

 Programme

Parvaz 7 beat cycle, maqam Qatar
Saqezi 6 beat cycle, Kurdish Dance
Khosh Rang 17 beat cycle, Rooholarvah in Bayat Tork
Hadadi 2 beat cycle, Zekr

 Lead Musicians:

Arash Moradi - Tanbour, Daf
Fariborz Kiani - Tombak, Daf

 Ensemble members:

Letitia Keys - Daf Vocals
Dionysios Kyropoulos - Daf, Dohol, Vocals
Lukasz Kasprzak - Daf
Naho Ollason - Daf
David Schofield - Daf
Will Smith - Daf
Dominic Yeomans - Daf
Andrew Pace - Lute, Daf
Misty Brunton - Cello, Daf

Mojgan Esfahani - Daf, Symbols
Mahtab - Daf
Manijeh Nasri - Daf

 Biographies

Arash Moradi

Arash Moradi was born in the Kurdish city of Kermanshah in Western Iran. He is the eldest son of Iran’s leading tanbour player Ali Akbar Moradi. Arash started learning this ancient art form from an early age from his father whom he later on accompanied in numerous concerts and festivals throughout Iran and Europe and the US.
Arash lives in London where he teaches tanbour and runs workshops on Persian music.

Fariborz Kiannejad
Fariborz started learning tombak firstly by himself and later on with one of Iran’s leading tombak players, Morteza Ayan. He studied daf with Iran’s daf legend Bijan Kamkar. He has participated in numerous concerts throughout the world performing with some of the finest Iranian musicians as well as internationally acclaimed musicians of other music cultures of the world.

Fariborz holds regular percussion workshops throughout the UK. He is currently the Ensemble Leader of the Middle Eastern Ensemble at City University.

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