Badieh

OzAsia

Nexus 29 October

Badieh is a collaboration between Spanish born Michel Gasco on rubab, a string instrument with 3 main strings, a few drone strings and then up to 15 sympathetic strings, mainly associated with Afghanistan on one hand, and Mohammad Miraghazadeh on setar, a very long necked four stringed instrument of Persian origin. For this concert, they were joined by Pranav Ramji on tabla.

The concert, and what a concert, played music from Greater Khorasan, an area that boarders the Caspian Sea, Iran and Afghanistan. This is what world music is all about.

Truly an international concert with Spain, Iran and India all represented! But it was the Persian music that was featured and what a revelation.

With Gasco doing all the introductions, the audience was presented with a brilliant selection of music, lyrical, majestic and always compelling. To have such music played by such brilliant musicians was something to savor.

With so many strings, Gasco needed to almost constantly retune the many strings, but that was but a minor distraction to the wonderful music that flowed so effortlessly. The explanation of each piece of music only highlighted the beauty and importance of the music.

On some pieces Mohammad sang with deep emotion and brought to life the meaning of the words, even though this reviewer had no idea what the lyrics were about! Thanks to Michel’s introductions it seemed to make sense.

This special but low key concert is what OzAsia is all about, the bringing together of Asian culture with Australian audiences. If the audience response is anything to go by, then this was a huge success and may we see and hear so many more like this.