Afarin Nazarijou, qanun | Improvisation in Chahārgāh

This music is a homage, an offering, to all the women composers and performers whose names have been forgotten. Improvisation, for its temporal and ephemeral nature, consecrates the forgotten, the nameless. – Afarin Nazarijou

Chahārgāh is one of the main seven modal systems of Persian classical music, known as Dastgāh. Each Dastgāh is a poly-modal system with smaller modal units, called Gusheh (corners). The qanun, a large zither with a thin trapezoidal soundboard, is famous for its unique melodramatic sound. It is played either solo, or more often as part of an ensemble, in much of the Middle East, North Africa, West Africa, Central Asia, and southeastern regions of Europe. It goes by various names throughout these regions -- qanun, kanun, ganoun or kanoon -- all are derived from the Arabic word qanun, meaning "rule, law, norm, principle". The qanun traces its origins to a stringed instrument from the Old Assyrian Empire, specifically from the nineteenth century BC in Mesopotamia.

This performance was part of the May 2021 Contemporary Improvisation virtual concert, "The Women in the Band", inspired in part by the 2011 documentary The Girls in the Band, which celebrated stories of women jazz and big band instrumentalists from the 1930s through the present day. Conscious of our tendency to think first of women in music as “the singer“ or “the pianist“, in this concert, we deliberately engaged with the work of women instrumentalists and composer/performer/improvisers, across many genres and traditions.