The talented Chemirani family - Keyvan, Bijan and Maryam - have recorded an album called Hâl (pronounced ‘Hol’), which explores the intersection of Iranian, Indian and Irish music. Subtitled ‘Love ballads’, it features love poems with texts sung in English or Persian. The ‘hâl’ corresponds to the moment when one lets oneself go, that ecstatic state between awakening and self-forgetfulness… Keyvan, a zarb and percussion virtuoso, and Bijan, an expert on the saz lute and also a percussionist, are known from the highly regarded Trio Chemirani, formed with their father. This album introduces their sister Maryam, a singer but also a nurse, who followed in the footsteps of Mother Teresa in India, then worked in the Alpes de Haute Provence. Keyvan devised this programme especially for her, inspired both by her voice which is ‘warm and deeply generous’ and her compassionate spirit which imbues her performance with added emotion. The incredible flute player Sylvain Barou, their brother in music, completes the ensemble.
It is quite rare to find, in so-called world music, a unique and original meeting of cultures, striking in its obvious, organic and modest simplicity. As if that is the way things should be, without artificial political/artistic/cultural conventions and free of the new-age baggage of superficial slogans about one world without borders. But that is exactly the magic behind the Mediterranean trio of Cretan lyra player Stelios Petrakis, Spanish multi-instrumentalist Efrén López and Iranian/French percussionist Bijan Chemirani (son of the great Iranian zarb master Djamshid Chemirani). All three have collaborated before with Greek/Irish multi-instrumentalist Ross Daly.
Die Academia Allegro Vivo wurde vom Geiger Bijan Khadem-Missagh gegründet. Vom Barock über die Klassik und Romantik bis zur Moderne reicht das Repertoire, mit zyklischen Schwerpunkten wie der Wiener Klassik, der Musik des Donauraumes um 1900, oder dem Thema "Kulturelle Metamorphosen", bei dem die Musiktradition Europas in Beziehung zu der Musik anderer Kontinente gesetzt wird.