MUSIC FOR PIANO AND KAMANCHEH VIOLIN

DREAMING AT THE INTERSECTION OF CLASSICAL PERSIAN MUSIC AND EASTERN EUROPEAN MELODIES.

We know pianist Antonín Fajt and his fanciful compositions, in which he incorporates traditional music from Eastern Europe, jazz, ambient and classical. He lives in the United States, where he is one of the personalities of the local improvisational scene and has played with big names in contemporary transgenre music. He is the son of Iva Bittová, whose instinctive blurring of the boundaries between instrument, voice and body is said to have changed the life of Iranian composer and kamancheh player Niloufar Shiri. While from Antonín she learned to listen to space, silence and others. They met in 2019 in California and have since formed the duo Mantis, moving at the intersection of classical Persian music, Eastern European traditions, free improvisation and contemporary work.
Before emigrating from Iran, Niloufar Shiri graduated from the Tehran Conservatory of Music in playing the kamancheh and continued her composition studies at the University of California, San Diego. She is one of the master players who include a tribute to Persian culture and poetry in her music. She and Antonín then understand each other in mastering improvisation. This is anchored in Persian traditional music in the long-term study of the classical repertoire called radif, played in modal systems.
The ancient four-stringed kamancheh can be simply described as an upright violin. "Although the musician is not in direct contact with the instrument while sitting, like a violinist or viola player, he treats the kamancheh as if it were another part of his body, or even more so, as if he were dancing with a very close loved one," wrote English journalist Simon Broughton about the predecessor of the European violin from Persia, and the most famous living player Kayhan Kalhor from Iran claims that mastering the technique of playing the instrument from the beginning of time also includes a percussive component, reminiscent of riding a wild horse on the kamancheh, when you must not relax your concentration even for a second. Quite a challenge for Antonín's well-tempered piano, from the album Little Mountains - a personal interpretation of Iranian, Kurdish and Macedonian melodies - but we hear that they turned this apparent obstacle into an advantage and an artistic unique experience with Niloufar Shiri.