Forbidden Echoes

The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra will play with Iranian musicians using Western and Persian instruments to create extraordinary sound worlds in new music full of wistfulness, beauty and fierce protest. Led by André de Ridder, they will perform the delicate music of Golfam Khayam, who works and resides in Teheran. The performance will also mark the world premiere of the young Nader Adabnejad, who was trained and lives in Maastricht.

Furthermore, the Kurdish/German duo HJirok – singer Hani Mojtahedi and producer Andi Toma (Mouse on Mars) – will present Forbidden Echoes, a captivating song cycle about loss and liberation. This work was based on the story of Shirin, a woman who hides in the mountains to mourn her lost love. The mountain in the Kurdish borderland of northern Iraq and Iran was later named after her: Jabal Shirin. It was on this mountain that Mojtahedi sang Shirin’s centuries-old Kurdish laments once more, her voice echoing through the valley where countless victims of political struggle lay buried.

The sound reached the Iranian side of the mountains, where women are not permitted to sing alone, only in choirs. Mojtahedi and Toma will bring this echo back to life in Amsterdam. Toma will use a range of microphones to create an acoustic echo chamber, while Mojtahedi - like Shirin at one time in the mountains - sings her songs at the Muziekgebouw. 

Ancient Persia has a long, rich musical tradition that saw regular renewal throughout the ages. Years of oppression would alternate with periods in which connection with other cultures was encouraged. After 1979’s Iranian Revolution, most public music performances were banned, and in current-day Iran the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance and State broadcaster control the dissemination of music. Despite this, Iranian musicians manage to bless the world all over, also within Iran, with exceptional new music.