From the ensemble’s name, you’d never know they’re a classical string quartet. It’s all part of the boundary-defying venture of these four innovative young players, who in addition to maintaining a claim on the mainstream classical repertoire have worked together on cross-cultural, cross-genre projects such as Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble. They’re hip in a geeky Brooklyn way (suspenders, facial hair). They’re passionate and knowledgeable about art: their ensemble’s name makes reference to the Blue Rider group in expressionist painting nearly a century ago. They do shows in clubs, galleries, and the occasional Buddhist temple. Everyone but the cellist plays standing up, and when the music calls for it, they dig into their instruments with the exuberance of racehorses let out of the barn.
I had a unique opportunity to chat with these great musicians before their concert in Walton Arts Center on Friday November 6.
Q: How does it feel to collaborate with musician of such an importance like Kayhan?
Colin: We are lucky to work with Kayhan because he is like a national treasure of Iran. (laugh).
Eric: Yeah, anyway we go we just say:”we are with that guy”. (laugh)
Nick: But we also know that on both sides there’s audience that is kind of strict, they observe certain lows of tradition and beyond those lows. It’s true in Iran as well as in West.
Johnny: It’s important to be open about what you do. We are not trying to say that we are experts in one or the other. We are just share with the audience something that we really love doing. Audience is usually open and we can feel it on stage.
Q: What is new that you learned from Kayhan?
Colin: In Kayhan’s tradition you can’t play note together unless you have some sort of relationship and understanding, but in Western classical music you can come together very quickly because of text. At first we couldn’t understand why he made us repeat every piece from the beginning instead of focus on the details. Finally it got to me! It’s really about finding stage of mind and body to play something, so all the details kind of fall into place. It’s rather than thinking about the detail first.
Nick: Lot of the music that Kayhan composes is a journey. You will find that Silent city (second half of the program) is a huge journey. You transport it in time and space. It’s really hard to rehearse that piece section by section.
Q: Did you find similarities with Iranian music during your trip to Tehran?
Nick: One of my first impressions hearing Kehan play kamancheh was that it’s similar to western string instruments! It sound to me like really old European instrument, something like Renaissance fiddle .We felt like traveling through time and space. That’s beautiful thing about the sound of kamanche.
Colin: That’s why our last piece (on the first half of the concert) has the theme taken from Renaissance music and transferred to kamancheh and modern string Corte.
Eric: String instruments can sound as million different things depending how u play it. I’ve heard Colin and Johnny sound so close to kamancheh as well as Kayhan sometimes sounds like a Cello.
O: What did emerge from that experience?
Colin: Arrangement of Ascending Bird! It is the first piece on concert. That’s something that Nick and I heard in Iran- the music that encoded a popular legend of a bird attempting to fly to the sun in order to find transcendence. We heard this melody played on a traditional Iranian instrument that was made of the bones of the bird. Our ears were held to attention by the sound of an incredibly potent and piercing instrument so we decided to comprise the traditional tune and original introduction material.
Q: Did anyone ever tried to put some political label on your work?
Colin: Nothing that we’ve done has been created for a political reason but when we went to Iran and start playing with Kayhan who travel from Iran we were aware it’s not an easy thing to happen. So maybe it adds a special feeling to the moment of being able to do this.
Johnny: It’s also about places. I’m coming from Israel and a lot of people have view of Israel through the media and it’s a place very different from what you see in the news. The same thing is true for Iran as well for the US. People across ocean are just people and music is international. For us it’s not important where we from are.
Q: How is playing in such a diverse ensemble different than playing alone?
Nick: What is great about playing in ensemble it’s that you put all thing together when you have open channels of communication and trust. Everyone is bringing something on the table. Performance is different every time because your experience changes. When you put six people’s input together you end up with much more than six people, you end up with a new set of things. Result is greater than its parts. That’s why we love playing together.
Q: What about different styles of playing, may that be a problem?
Mathias: Whether you are trained for playing most difficult classical pieces (like guys from Brooklyn Rider) or you are trained from home and how your grandpa taught you (like Kayhan) you can get together and make it happen if you want to. You got to give up a little bit of what you know and let in something what other person knows. You have to open your mind an ears and just be willing to let in some other sounds that maybe you didn’t know. You can’t just do your own thing. It might not work!
Q: What is the recipe for good collaboration in music?
Colin: You have to have a good will and patience to share your traditional music with others. There is no way that any of us would really learn how to play Middle-Eastern music if Kayhan didn’t put so much effort to share what he knows with us. Also it’s not like we all of the sudden play Persian music and Kayhan play Mozart. It’s just an extension and fusion! A new thing!
Eric: Music is really social- like smoking (laugh).
adragic
