Australian Music Centre | Breaking sound barriers

Event Details

Returning from a highly successful tour to Malaysia, Bridges Collective invites you to its next exciting concert Persian Liaisons. This concert provides an extremely rare opportunity to hear internationally-acclaimed Iranian Ney specialist, Arya BastaniNezhad, give a lecture-demonstration with improvisations on one of the world’s oldest wind instruments, the Persian Ney. Bridges will showcase new music by contemporary Iranian composers Reza Vali, Morteza Hannaneh and Siavash Beizai - you will hear Iranian classical and folkloric elements being merged with modern Western performance practices and compositional techniques. These Iranian composers’ use of microtonality and middle Eastern melismatic melodies within a Western musical framework produces a beautifully rich musical tapestry that is reminiscent of the art of Persian calligraphy. Other composers profiled in this concert are Australian Katia Tiutiunnik and English Edward Gregson. Tiutiunnik’s works draw extensively on Mesopotamian elements while Gregson’s work Aztec Dances was inspired by an exhibition at the British Museum on Moctezuma, ruler of the ancient Aztec civilisation. Gregson’s work creates an exciting and exhilarating soundscape which evokes images of Amazonian rituals and dances and has been described as a piece that will ‘smash any of our prejudices to smithereens’. Drawing together performers from a variety of cultural backgrounds, this concert will feature Melbourne’s own Karen Heath (clarinet), Sydney-born London resident Agatha Yim (flute), Malaysian-born Australian resident Brenna Wee (piano), and recently-settled Australian residents Arya BastaniNezhad (flute, Persian Ney) from Shiraz and Melika Tehrani BastaniNezhad (soprano) from Tehran.

Featured non-Australian music: Arya BastaniNezhad, Siavash Beizai, Reza Vali, Morteza Hannaneh, Edward Gregson

Further information for this event is available online at the event's website or by phone on 0407 934 810 or by email to info@bridgescollective.com

Featured Australian Works

Featured artists

• Performer Agatha Yim
• Performer Arya BastaniNezhad
• Performer Melika Tehrani BastaniNezhad
• Performer Karen Heath
• Performer Brenna Wee