Composer, piano & vocals: Pegah Varamini
Tonbak: Mohsen Solhdoost
Daf: Omid Rahimi
Kamancheh: Cieavash Arian
Lyrics: Hafez
Particular pains of loss stay with us to let us know that they are more real than one would think. Hafez uses the most beautiful metaphorical expressions to masterfully portray how such aging pains are cellared like vintage wines in human heart. Thus, time does not heal nor could it eliminate such particular depositories of pain in heart; yet, it only transforms them.
Faghån’e Barbat (Weeping of Barbat), is a song that Pegah Varamini composed to express painful emotions that each and everyone of us experience in our lives, a pain that inflicted on us because of a departed beloved. It is moving along the continuum of mourning; from denial and anger to submission and complaint. The aged grief has not improved or worsened; it has just changed from one form of manifestation to another.
I have been experiencing two distinct types of music, i.e. Persian traditional compositions and Western Classical music, for the past years. And I have been always contemplating the possibility of finding commonalities to reconcile and connect these two seemingly incompatible classical types of music.
To this end, in August 2014, I decided to try my hand at fusing Persian and Classical opera via innovative and creative approaches. Thus, I created a fusion of two music styling using a Persian traditional composition (Come along with me) by Mehdi Khaledi in Homayoun dastgãh and an aria (E lucevan le stelle) from opera Tosca by Giaccomo Puccini. I wrote short bridges to fuse two pieces together. In the arrangement of this piece, distinctive melodic and rhythmic patterns are elegantly developed and dovetailed together. I and Janelle, named it Perssical, stemmed from two words Persian and Classical.
At the end of this piece, I have arranged the vocal parts in both musical and conceptual harmony:
Persian lyrics: “Come along with me”,
Opera lyrics in harmony: “la vita (life)”
The offspring of these two wedded pieces aim to suggest: If you come along with me, this is life!
The following people contributed in this recording:
Pegah Varamini: Musical Arrangement, Piano, Persian Classical Vocals; Ensemble Leader
Janelle Colquhoun: Western Classical Vocals
Graham Evans: Clarinet
Sandy Chu: Flute
Ingrid Marcela Leal Rojas: Violin
John C. Varney: Double bass
Omid Rahimi: Daf
Mohsen Solhdoost: Tonbak
Pouyan Khaki: Tãr
Mojdeh Kholghi: Auxiliary percussion
Composer: Rouhollah Khaleghi
Lyrics: Roudaki
Arrangement: Pegah Varamini, John Varney
Vocals: Pegah Varamini, Omid Rahimi
Ensemble leader: Pegah Varamini
Conductor: John Varney
Orchestra director: Stephen Wu
Pegah Varamini: Ensemble leader, piano, vocals, and composer
John Varney: Double bass
Omid Rahimi: Vocals and daf
Ingrid Marcela Leal Rojas: Violin
Saman Azadi: Santour, Taar
Mohsen Solhdoost: Tonbak
Mojdeh Kholghi: Auxiliary percussion
Persian Suite The repertoire arranged by John Varney and Pegah Varamini Hezar Ava Ensemble and Orchestra Corda Spiritus of St. Andrews 25th May, 2014