List of Persian/Iranian Events for 2010-02-28

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Brenda Kean Tabor January 12, 2010 (202) 533-1886
btabor@wpas.org

Masters of Persian Music Hossein Alizadeh and Kayhan Kalhor
perform with vocalist Hamid Reza Nourbakhsh at
the Kennedy Center Concert Hall on February 28

Washington, D.C.¬- Two leading figures in Persian classical music will perform with members of the next generation of musical masters at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall on Sunday, February 28 at 8 p.m.
The seven-member group features Hossein Alizadeh who performs on the tar, a complex, multi-stringed instrument with adjustable frets. Alizadeh is considered an inspiration to an entire generation of Iran’s musical culture. Trained in composition, performance and musicology at the Universities of Tehran and Berlin, he also studied with the ostads (maestros) of Persian music including Ali Akbar Khan Shahnazi, Nur Ali Borumand, Abdollah Davami, Mahmood Karimi and Houshang Zarif
Alizadeh has been both conductor and soloist with the Iranian National Radio and Television Orchestra. He founded the Aref Ensemble and performed with the Shayda Ensemble, both dedicated to the promotion and advancement of Iranian classical music. Alizadeh has recorded the entire body of the radif (a core set of works made up of about 200 short modal pieces called gushehs) based on the interpretation of Mirza Abdollah (1843-1918), a noted court musician and master of both the Persian setar (a four-stringed plucked lute) and the tar.
Alizadeh has himself composed many works of contemporary and neo-classical Iranian music including “Hessar,” “Ney Nava” and “Song of Compassion” and film scores including Gabbeh, A Time for Drunken Horses and, most recently, Turtles Can Fly. Alizadeh has performed extensively throughout the United States, Europe and Asia and has appeared on many radio and television programs around the world. He has taught at the University of Tehran, the Tehran Music Conservatory and the California Institute of the Arts.
Kayhan Kalhor is an internationally acclaimed kamancheh (spike-fiddle) virtuoso and has played a leading role in popularizing Persian music in the West. A member of Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Project, his compositions appear on all three of the ensemble’s albums and three of his recent recordings have been nominated for Grammys. Said the New York Times last season, “When Mr. Kalhor performed, it sounded like a conversation among several instruments, with the varying timbres at times evoking the wailing pleas of disconsolate lovers. From a simple, muted beginning, the music became more intense and embellished, as ornate melodies and ornaments unfolded with calligraphic detail above ostinato bass patterns.”
Kalhor began his musical studies at the age seven and at 13 was invited to work with the National Orchestra of Radio and Television of Iran, where he performed for five years. At 17 he began working with the Shayda Ensemble of the Chavosh Cultural Center, the most prestigious arts organization in Iran at the time.
Kalhor has traveled extensively throughout Iran, studying the music of its many regions, especially of Khorason and Kordestan. He has soloed with a number of leading ensembles, including the New York Philharmonic and the Orchestre National de Lyon, and is co-founder of the renowned ensembles Dastan, Ghazal: Persian & Indian Improvisations and Masters of Persian Music.
Kalhor has composed works for Iran’s most renowned vocalists Mohammad Reza Shajarian and Shahram Nazeri and has performed and recorded with Iran’s greatest instrumentalists. Kayhan has also composed music for television and film and was most recently featured on the soundtrack of Francis Ford Coppola’s Youth Without Youth in a score on which he collaborated with Osvaldo Golijov. Last season, composer John Adams invited Kalhor to perform a solo recital at Carnegie Hall as part of his Perspectives Series and in the same year Kalhor appeared on a double bill at Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival.
The Masters of Persian Music ensemble also includes vocalist Hamid Reza Nourbakhsh, a leading disciple of Mohammad Reza Shajarian. Accompanists are M.R. Ebrahimi (barbat or oud, plucked lute) Alireza Hosseini (tombak, single-headed goblet-shaped drum), Rouzbeh Rahimi, (santur, a hammered dulcimer) and Siamak Jahangiry (ney, flute).
Downloadable high-resolution images are available at http://www.wpas.org/tickets/press.aspx

Funded in part by the D.C. Commission on the Arts & Humanities, an agency supported in part by
National Endowment for the Arts

WPAS is committed to making every event accessible for persons with disabilities. Please call the WPAS Ticket Services Office for more information on accessibility to the various theaters in which our performances are held. Services offered vary from venue to venue and may require advance notice.
Washington Performing Arts Society has created profound opportunities for connecting the community to artists, in both education and performance. Through live events in venues that criss-cross the landscape of the D.C. metropolitan area, the careers of emerging artists are guided, and established artists who have bonded with the local audience are invited to return. In this way, the space between artists and audiences is eliminated, so that all may share life-long opportunities to deepen their cultural knowledge, enrich their lives, and expand their understanding and compassion of the world through the universal language of the arts.

# # # #

Ezzat Goushegir, playwright will present four short plays on Sunday February 28 at 2: PM at Mess Hall. Seven Jewish Children by Caryl Churchill, SEVEN PALESTINIAN CHILDREN by Deb Margolin , You’re Not a Man and Two Iranian Children by Ezzat Goushegir.
The plays will be directed by Ezzat Goushegir and acted by Cheryl Snodgrass, Laura Welsh Berg and Jeremy Cohn.

The reading is free and open to public.

The Return of Political Theatre
Political theatre throughout history has always had a considerable influence on public consciousness and enhanced social changes. Economic crisis, war, invasion, the rise of religious fundamentalism, violence, poverty and natural disasters are the dominant subjects of today’s human history. Through the exploration of such universal themes the political theatre is trying to find its flourishing ground once again.
Mess Hall will conduct a play reading series with a meticulous selection of plays written by regional playwrights every season. The February 28 reading is dedicated to the Middle East.
Ezzat Goushegir, playwright will present a selection of four short plays written by Caryl Churchill, Deb Margolin and hers. The reading is free and open to public.
Seven Jewish Children by Caryl Churchill
In response to last year Israel’s bombing attack and ground invasion of the Gaza Strip which killed over thousand Palestinian and left many seriously injured, Caryl Churchill the prominent British playwright wrote this controversial 10-minute play, Seven Jewish Children, a play for Gaza.
CONTINUING THE CONVERSATION WITH CARYL CHURCHILL, Deborah S. Margolin wrote SEVEN PALESTINIAN CHILDREN, a 10-minute play for the other, portraying seventy years of the history of Palestine under Israeli occupation.
You’re Not a Man! By Ezzat Goushegir, a 15-minute play about the invasion of Afghanistan.
Ahmad, an Afghani translator, and two American interrogators working for a military base in Afghanistan, speak about an innocent young farmer and taxi driver who was shackled and brutally tortured for four days at Bagram prison, a detention center 40 miles north of Kabul.

Two Iranian Children By Ezzat Goushegir, a 15- minute play about two Iranian twin sisters coming together after twenty two years of separation caused by theocratic regime of Islamic Republic of Iran. This play was written on January 8th the International Symbolic Work Strike, in Solidarity with Iranian people.
The plays will be directed by Ezzat Goushegir and acted by Cheryl Snodgrass, Laura Welsh Berg and Jeremy Cohn.
Cheryl Snodgrass focuses on the production of new works. She was last in Roanoke to direct Rosalee Was Here, by Maura Campbell. Cheryl has been a guest artist at Lawrence University and was a founding member of No Shame Theatre, The Unusual Cabaret, Les Enfants du Mais, and C'est Destine.
Laura Welsh Berg has been in Arms and the Man at Stage Center and Mill Fire at Sheil Park Theater. Before moving to Chicago, Laura was a company member of the Idaho Shakespeare Festival in Boise, Idaho and Great Lakes Theater Festival in Cleveland, Ohio where she has appeared in The Crucible, Macbeth, and many other plays.
Jeremy Cohn a graduate of the Boston University B.F.A. Acting program currently living and working as an actor in Chicago. His most recent projects include the title role in "Sunday in the Park with George" at Village Players Theatre, as well as appearances with the Jeff Nominated "A Moon for the Misbegotten".
The event will take place at Mess Hall on February 28 at 2: PM
Admission is free.
Mess Hall
6932 North Glenwood Ave.
Chicago, IL 60608
www.messhall.org

نگاه به شرایط کنونی جامعه ایران بعد از گذشت ۲۶۲ روز از انتخابات همراه با دکتر فرهنگ هلاکویی