Kayhan Kalhor
Encyclopedia
Kayhan Kalhor born 24 November 1963, is an Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...

ian kamancheh
Kamancheh
The kamānche or kamāncha is a Persian bowed string instrument related to the bowed rebab, the historical ancestor of the kamancheh and also to the bowed lira of the Byzantine Empire, ancestor of the European violin family. The strings are played with a variable-tension bow: the word "kamancheh"...

 player, composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

 and master of classical Kurdish and Persian music.

Youth and studies

Kayhan Kalhor was born in Tehran
Tehran
Tehran , sometimes spelled Teheran, is the capital of Iran and Tehran Province. With an estimated population of 8,429,807; it is also Iran's largest urban area and city, one of the largest cities in Western Asia, and is the world's 19th largest city.In the 20th century, Tehran was subject to...

. He began studying music at age seven. By age thirteen he was playing in the National Orchestra of Radio and Television of Iran. Continuing his music studies under various teachers, he studied in the Persian radif
Musical radif
Radif is a collection of many old melodic figures preserved through many generations by oral tradition. It organizes the melodies in a number of different tonal spaces called Dastgah...

 tradition and also travelled to study in the northern part of Khorasan province, where music traditions have Kurdish and Turkic influences as well as Persian. At a musical conservatory in Tehran around age 20 Kalhor worked under the directorship of Mohammad-Reza Lotfi
Mohammad-Reza Lotfi
Mohammad-Rezā Lotfi is a Persian classical musician renowned for his mastery of the tar and setar.- Biography :Encouraged by his elder brother, he learned to play the tar and showed his talent by winning the first prize in Iran's Young Musicians Festival in 1964...

 who is from Northern Khorasan. Kalhor also travelled in the northwestern (Kurdish) provinces of Iran. He later moved to Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

 and Ottawa
Ottawa
Ottawa is the capital of Canada, the second largest city in the Province of Ontario, and the fourth largest city in the country. The city is located on the south bank of the Ottawa River in the eastern portion of Southern Ontario...

 to study European classical music.

Music and musical partners

Kayhan Kalhor has a wide range of musical influences, he uses several musical instruments, and crosses cultural borders with his work, but at his center he is an intense player of the Persian violin. In his playing Kalhor often pins Persian classical music structures to the rich folk modes and melodies of the Kurdish tradition of Iran.

Kalhor has composed works for, and played alongside, the famous Iranian vocalists Mohammad Reza Shajarian
Mohammad Reza Shajarian
Mohammad-Reza Shajarian is an internationally and critically acclaimed Persian traditional singer, composer and ostad of Persian music...

 (see Masters of Persian Music) and Shahram Nazeri
Shahram Nazeri
Shahram Nazeri is a contemporary Iranian tenor of Kurdish ancestry who sings classical Persian music from Kermanshah. He is one of Iran's most respected vocalists...

. He has also composed and performed with the Indian sitar
Sitar
The 'Tablaman' is a plucked stringed instrument predominantly used in Hindustani classical music, where it has been ubiquitous since the Middle Ages...

 player Shujaat Husain Khan
Shujaat Husain Khan
Shujaat Husain Khan is a noted Indian musician and sitar player belonging to the Imdadkhani gharana. He has over 60 albums to his credit besides a Grammy nomination. He has also been acclaimed for his vocals, and has performed in the band Ghazal with Kayhan Kalhor...

 and Indian tabla
Tabla
The tabla is a popular Indian percussion instrument used in Hindustani classical music and in popular and devotional music of the Indian subcontinent. The instrument consists of a pair of hand drums of contrasting sizes and timbres...

 player Swapan Chaudhuri
Swapan Chaudhuri
Swapan Chaudhuri is an Indian tabla player, who has accompanied several musicians of Indian classical music, including, Pandit Ravi Shankar, Ustad Ali Akbar Khan and Pandit Jasraj....

, the three forming the group Ghazal
Ghazal (band)
Ghazal is a band formed by Kurdish-Iranian kamencheh player Kayhan Kalhor, Indian sitarist Shujaat Khan, and Indian tabla player Swapan Chaudhuri...

, and producing several albums. Kalhor's 2004 album Mirror of the Sky was a joint venture with the Kurdish Iranian lute player Ali Akbar Moradi
Ali Akbar Moradi
Ali Akbar Moradi,, born 1957 is a well known Iranian Kurdish musician and composer. He was born in the Iranian city of Kermanshah...

. Kalhor's most recent album The Wind (2006) is a collaboration with the Turkish baglama
Baglama
thumb|180px|Cura and bağlamaThe bağlama is a stringed musical instrument shared by various cultures in the Eastern Mediterranean, Near East, and Central Asia....

 virtuoso Erdal Erzincan, with both Turkish and Persian pieces performed. At other times Kalhor has collaborated with Yo-Yo Ma
Yo-Yo Ma
Yo-Yo Ma is an American cellist, virtuoso, and orchestral composer. He has received multiple Grammy Awards, the National Medal of Arts in 2001 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011...

's Silk Road Project
Silk Road Project
Silk Road Project, Inc. is a not-for-profit organization, initiated by acclaimed cellist Yo-Yo Ma in 1998, promoting collaboration among artists and institutions, promoting multicultural artistic exchange, and studying the ebb and flow of ideas among different cultures along the Silk Road. The...

 Ensemble in the USA and the Kronos Quartet
Kronos Quartet
Kronos Quartet is a string quartet founded by violinist David Harrington in 1973 in Seattle, Washington. Since 1978, the quartet has been based in San Francisco, California. The longest-running combination of performers had Harrington and John Sherba on violin, Hank Dutt on viola, and Joan...

.

Kalhor now resides in USA and has been commercially successful in USA over the past decade (two of his works were nominated for Grammy Awards in 2004).

Works

  • Ghazal: Lost Songs of the Silk Road, 1997
  • Solo Album Scattering Stars Like Dust, 1998
  • Ghazal 2: As Night Falls on the Silk Road, 1998
  • Shahram Nazeri and Dastan: Through Eternity, 1999
  • Ghazal 3: Moon Rise over the Silk Road, 2000
  • M.R. Shajarian: Night Silence Desert, 2000
  • Kronos Quartet: Caravan, 2000
  • Masters of Persian Music: It's Winter, 2001
  • Yo-Yo Ma and Silk Road Ensemble: Silk Road Journeys: When Strangers Meet, 2001
  • Masters of Persian Music: Without You, 2002
  • Ghazal: The Rain, 2003
  • Ali Akbar Moradi: In the Mirror of the Sky, 2004
  • Masters of Persian Music: Faryad, 2005
  • Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble: Silk Road Journeys: Beyond the Horizon, 2005
  • Erdal Erzincan: The Wind, 2006
  • Masters of Persian Music: Saze Khamoosh, 2007
  • Masters of Persian Music: Soroude Mehr, 2007
  • The Silk Road Ensemble with Yo-Yo Ma: New Impossibilities, 2007
  • Brooklyn Rider: Silent City, 2008
  • The Silk Road Ensemble: Off the Map, 2009
  • Voices of the Shades, 2011

External links

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