Tag Archives: Entertainment

Six Pillars – Mansour Bahrami & East

Famous for serving six balls at once on a professional court, under arm serves, and speciality shots including the ‘power shot through the legs’, ‘the lob through the legs’ and ‘the drop shot’ which bounces back over the net due to excessive backspin tennis impresario Mansour Bahrami is not to be matched. At the launch of his book he talks about his extraordinary rise to stardom via homelessness in France and the singularly harsh treatment he received as a child on the tennis courts in Iran.

mansour

BIBA (The British Iranian Business Association) organised the evening in Summer 08 as part of their public service programming.  Fari Taydayon from The Energy Deployment Company and Bez Ghazian review the event at the Hilton where Bahrami was speaking.

The show features classical music played by Haydn Dickenson: piano imitates and transcends santoor in the ten minute piece ‘Tariq 1″ from the album ‘East’.

Six Pillars – A Modern Take on Folk

When five young men who are a typical modern concoction of traditional Iranian values and MTV play music together what will it sound like?

simorgh3

Simorgh is the name of a mystical bird in Sufi folklore. As a band of young urbanites however, their music incorporates group chanting and a lyrical poetry that is folk-rap, accompanied by the evocative ney flute, tar strings and the empty bellow of the daf drum.  This alluring mixture is – as far as our experience shows – at it’s optimum best when seen live, so we brought them into the studio to whip up some of that tribal feeling we’ve come to associate their performances with.

simorgh

Fari Bradley talks to the five members of the band about leaving university, playing football, parents, Bryan Adams and musical instruments as weapons of culture.

Simorgh run workshops for the BBC on Iranian music and put on their own concerts around London. With their own unique melange of influences, the band stand for something many of us can comprehend: what it’s like to be a cultural cocktail in London now.

This programme was originally broadcast from the Resonance104.4fm studios on July 21st 2008.

Six Pillars -Persian Voyages

Two small travel companies explain the ins and outs of travelling to Iran.  From dry sand skiing to Zoroastrian tours, there is a lot on offer!

Persian Voyages and Magic Carpet Travel share anecdotes and histories, as well as tips for those considering leaving.
This programme was originally broadcast on Resonance 104.4fm in London, on July 14th 2008

Podcast

Six Pillars – Jamshid Bayrami

6IIIs to Persia on Resonance104.4fm

Photographer Jamshid Bayrami shows his works in ‘Haj’, the opening exhibition at Xerxes Fine Arts Gallery in London, the only permanent gallery dedicated to Iranian art.

Bayrami has worked successfully as a photo journalist and is known for his picture of a bloodied hand print on a T-shirt during student protests that appeared on the front of The Economist magazine. Following three days of bloodshed at Tehran University in July 1999, the subject of the picture Ahmad Batebi was given a 13-year prison sentence.  Bayrami’s work continues to be frank and sincere, yet has taken on some very subtle tones as he moves into the realm of art for this exhibition.

Here Fari Bradley talks to gallery owner and curator Ali Bagherzadeh, who is himself a collector, about the show and its pieces.

This show was originally broadcast from the Resonancefm studios on July 7th 2008

…Listen to the interview…

Six Pillars – A Contemporary Iranian Music Event + Maria Kheirkhah

Fari Bradley reports from the Contemporary Iranian Music event at the Camden Underworld and interviews artist Maria Kheirkhah live in the studio about her career choice to become an artist, collecting air in the Iranian desert and her current exhibition the Psychology of Fear. Featured are Farinaz Entegham, Ali Charmi on hip hop and faith, and the father of one of the members of Simorgh.

(pictured: Maria Keirkhah collects hot desert air for her show)

Most Iranian parents want their children to be lawyers or doctors, so how do aspiring musicians fare with their parents when making out-of-the-ordinary career choices. Also what does contemporary music mean to most young Iranians? We’ve heard the desperate eurodance trash that most clubs advertise as Persian music, and other than that there is only Dylan-esque songs and traditional music to choose from in the main.  Rightly, some UK based Iranians are fusing the traditional forms and instruments with modern concerns, with a vocal delivery that compares with rapping under the moniker Contemporary Iranian for the event and Simorgh for their group. Simorgh are also promoting other new musicians such as rapper Farinaz Entegham (Holland) and Reveal (UK).

This show was originally broadcast from Resonancefm studios in London on June 16th 2008, produced and presented by Fari Bradley

Listen to the audio

Six Pillars – Hush the Many Heed the Few

Nima Tehranchi, singer from Hush the Many Heed the Few visits the studio and talks to Fari Bradley about his success with Hush the Many and with his own solo project “Sliding Rule“.

Nima plays live in the studio.

Hush the Many are known for their finely balanced vocal interplays and innovative songwriting and have appeared in festivals all over the UK. Since giving this interview, Hush the Many have gone their seperate ways and Nima now writes and sings with Arrows of Love. Importantly, after the show Nima mentioned that being a guest on Six Pillars had made him feel more like an Iranian and inspired to find out more about the Iranian community in London, something non-Farsi speakers have limited access to. Nima is not the first to point this out.

Listen to the interview

Six Pillars – Persian Electronic Music Yesterday & Today

Sote is a composer and sound designer living in America. On a chance visit to Iran he heard a unique sound he had never come across before, the 1960’s avant garde electronics of Alireza Mashayekhi. Sote’s interest then led him to develop a relationship with Mashayekhi with whom he recently released a double CD on Sub Rosa records. His roots in Germany, Sote developed a trademark process for audio that gives his work its bizarre shape and signature sound. After a release of drum and bass on WARP records, Sote moved into experimental music and sound on Sub Rosa.

In this show, Fari interviews Sote about sound processes and the moment he first heard Mashayekhi’s music. We hear two experimental tracks from the album Persian Electronic Music Yesterday and Today 1966-2006. Many thanks to Sub Rosa Records for allowing us to podcast these tracks.

This show was broadcast live from Resonancefm studios in London April 7th 2008.

Six Pillars – Persian Esoterica ‘1

Mithras - temple fresco in Marino, Italy. 2nd Century A.D.

Mithras – temple fresco, Marino, Italy. 2nd Century A.D.

nabarz

All too often the English language refers to pagans as an insult, or a primitive people. Yet some of our most common roots are deep within these complex and highly telling belief systems, one of which: Mithraism Nabarz upholds as Persia’s greatest export to date.

Sufi-mystic Payam Nabarz discusses Phrygian Caps, snakes in ancient Persia and the calender of the moon. Zoroastrian and Sufi interests brought Payam to read up about Mithras, and he has steeped his life in the esoteric history of Iran and Zoroastrian rituals, publishing several books and numerous papers on aspects of both, available from Amazon

Fari interviews him on what Mithraism is and the different Persian calenders. For a deeper conversation on these matters refer to late Dec 08/Jan 09 when we invite Nabarz back in the studio for stage 2 in our radio foray into Persian esoterica.

This show was broadcast live from Resonancefm studios, London on March 31st 2008

Music: Kali Z. Fasteau

Six Pillars: Les Ballets Persans & Lady Jamileh Kharrazi

New Iranian National Ballet with Lady Jamila Kharrazi, the Toos Foundation, and Nima Kiann of Les Ballets Persans, Sweden, prior to the gala performance at Logan Hall to mark Les Ballets Persans 6th anniversary.

In a country where dance and performance is highly restricted, ballet seems something left over from the days of the Shas, a testimony to the effects of the identity of countries the west has sought to dominate. Meanwhile we may be familiar with classical scores that have sought to capture the spirit of the middle east with endemic melodies on violin or the standardisation of a sound from the Middle East on the string section, creating a kind of platitude in music for treatment of subjects during the launch of the era of technicolour film (Alad-Din, Sinbad etc).

In an ambitious move, Nima Khiann presents not only the ballet but an entire history of the importance of dance in Persian history, simultaneously dictated in English and Farsi at the gala performance with some sufi dancing by his ballet company, where the girls exchange their trademark buns for the loose, wild hair of a mystic seeker. The sufi tradition, we are told encourages dancing, an irony not lost on an audience comprised of many seeking artistic and spiritual freedom here in the UK.

Lady Jamileh Kharazi discusses the ins and outs of offering events of this size for free and her own extensive background in ballet and performance.

Six Pillars – Soheil Nasseri, Sonato No. 0 and BIBA

Classical pianist Soheil Nasseri gives an interview before his UK debut at The Royal Festival Hall. We hear pieces from Nasseri, details of unusual adventures in downtown US city schools and about performing the UK premiere of Sonata No.0, by little known Parsi Essex-born composer: Kaikhosru Sorabji, involving complex chords and fingering.

Also visiting the studio is Babak Emamian from the eminent British Iranian Business Association. BIBA endeavours to bring Iranians career opportunities and to help them find their way in the world of business. He and host Fari Bradley discuss everything from British-Iranian policemen’s balls to Calvinism.

This show was originally broadcast across London on 104.4fm on 17th March 08

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