Mahsa and Marjan Vahdat - Placeless

Music  

- 2019


Buy/listen:

Buy or Listen

...an extraordinary album with Iranian music of deep impressiveness and beauty.

Luxumbourg Woxx Magazine

”Placeless” لامكان (Kronos Quartet with Mahsa&Marjan) is taking over the top among 40 album in the Transglobal world music chart in April

Transglobal World Music Chart

The result is simply sensational. The two sisters know how to touch deeply without stirring the emotion. The ancient Rumi texts that they sing are still relevant many centuries after they have been written and, with their emphasis on displacement, even remarkably topical. The four musicians of the Kronos Quartet have understood very well that the music with such voices and lyrics is almost finished. They confirm their great status with very subtle play. Small accents provide a slightly more sophisticated expression; strengthen or soften an emotion. And as Kronos understands like no other, silence is often the best accompaniment

Trouw (Dutch daily newspaper)

The sound of this disc is captivating. The beautiful, ornamented melodies sigh, cry, and speak to something deep within every human being.

pitch-SHIFT

It’s one of those confluences of time, space, and creation that feels as inevitable as it does long overdue, and provides ample berth for these verses of Rumi to stretch their forlorn wings. Yet no matter how far these artists travel, horizontally or vertically, their presence in the moment is clear. It needs the food of our attention to survive, and in that regard watches us in slumber until we can open our ears with safety in mind.

Rootsworld

The quality of the musicians is beyond dispute. The ensemble playing is tight, the instruments sound crystal clear and within the song context the quartet knows how to contribute to the emotional musical atmosphere that the singing voices create.

Opduvel

Das Kronos Quartet bietet den beiden – traditionell wie klassisch geschulten – Sängerinnen faszinierende Klangräume, in denen ihre außergewöhnlichen Stimmen voll zur Geltung kommen. So entstehen ungewöhnliche Vibrati und ausgedehnte Melismen, die Klänge hervorbringen, die hoch spannend sind.

Wegot music.de

Ein meditatives Plädoyer für die Grenzenlosigkeit der Musik und gegen politische Trennlinien

Quantra.de

I don't know whose idea it was, but it's a winner. As far as I'm concerned, this is a match made in heaven."

Mixed World Music

It takes you to unprecedented places where universal, breathtaking beauty and friendship reign.

subjectivisten.nl

Das Album „Placeless“ ist ihr bislang mutigstes.

Deutschlandradio

Release number:   FXCD457

Release date:   01.03.2019


Placeless has 14 melodies that Mahsa Vahdat composed to classical poems by Hafez and Rumi and the works of contemporary Iranian poets Forough Farrokhzad, Mohammad Ibrahim Jafari and Atabak Elyasi. Composers Sahba Aminikia (Iran/US), Aftab Darvishi (Iran/ Netherlands), Jacob Garchik (US) and Atabak Elyasi arranged the songs for string quartet. Despite spanning a period of 800 years, even the oldest poems are still surprisingly relevant, showing how the human heart is always the same, regardless of time, place and culture.

The album title Placeless references a well-known poem by Rumi from the 13th century:

I am not from the East, nor from the West
I am not from the land, nor from the sea   
I am not from the world, not from beyond 
My place is placelessness. 
My trace is tracelessness.

 

“This recording is a milestone for us,” says Mahsa Vahdat. “The wonderful musicians in Kronos Quartet have given our music new dimensions. Our lives are constantly changing in relation to time and place. Our home and where we belong - this is all over the globe. By performing poems from Persia’s classical era, we have been coming closer and closer to finding an organic connection between what we express in our art and the way we live.” Commenting on the new release, Kronos’ artistic director, founder and violinist David Harrington states: “We’re always trying to learn as much as we can, and now, recording with Mahsa and Marjan, we sometimes are able to make sounds we have never before heard from our instruments.”

The Kronos Quartet has a 45-year career behind it, bravely and tirelessly striving to seek new musical experiences by continuously collaborating with new artists and composers. For 25 years, Mahsa and Marjan Vahdat have had an innovative attitude in their quest to give Persian poetry and music new expressions in collaboration with a number of musicians from many countries, from both their own region and other parts of the world. Kronos and Mahsa Vahdat were first introduced by Sahba Aminikia, when he served as the artist-in-residence of Kronos Festival 2017. Kronos and Mahsa Vahdat first performed together at the SFJAZZ Center in San Francisco on 2 February 2017, as part of that annual festival produced by the nonprofit Kronos Performing Arts Association. Since then, Kronos and Mahsa Vahdat performed an encore set at Kronos Festival 2018 and have been presented by the City of Geneva’s outdoor concert series Musiques en été, Oslo World Music Festival (with Marjan Vahdat), University of California, Santa Barbara, Arts & Lectures.

This year, Kronos and Mahsa Vahdat will perform concerts presented by Carnegie Hall on 8 February in New York, New York; Washington Performing Arts on 2 March in Washington D.C.; Narodowe Forum Muzyki and Jazztopad Festival on 9 March in Wrocław, Poland; and Green Music Center on 9 May in Sonoma, California.

Placeless is produced by KKV's founder Erik Hillestad. He also produced Lullabies from the Axis of Evil (2004), which featured Mahsa and Marjan Vahdat. That album was the start of a long and productive collaboration, which has led to Hillestad’s producing all subsequent releases by the Iranian sisters.

KKV is extremely proud to announce that the album «Placeless» with Kronos Quartet, Mahsa and Marjan Vahdat has got the following positions on the International World Music Charts:

Best transregional album 2019 in Transglobal World Music Chart (International network of music critics):

Number 1 in the Mixed World Music Charts (The Netherlands)

Number 1 of 746 nominated albums for 2019 in World Music Charts Europe (Germany):   CDON

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