Creation: 22 November 2008 – Festival des 38ème Rugissants de Grenoble (resumed on 25 November 2008 as part of Le Maillon season in Strasbourg)
Composition: Farangis Nurulla-Khoja
Commissioner: Mécénat Musical Société Générale
Co-production: Festival des 38ème Rugissants of Grenoble and Les Percussions de Strasbourg with the support of the Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC)
Duration: 60′
Musicians: 6 percussionists, 4 singers of traditional oriental music, 2 instrumentalists of tanbur sato and tanbur setar
Composer’s note of intent
Maqâms and Percussions… This project is the continuity of a reflection that I have been carrying out for several years and which is at the very heart of my work as a composer. Indeed, there is a real challenge in wanting to use music from an oral tradition that has been perpetuated for hundreds of years with contemporary music that is constantly evolving. What happens when music written in the present meets music written in tradition? Does this mean that things must remain immutable? Fortunately, art likes to combine paradoxes and I prefer to imagine that this encounter, this collision between musical traditions is an inexhaustible source for today’s art and an answer to our own reflections. For my part, my sensitivity to traditional music comes from my Tajik roots. This Central Asian culture has always had a long tradition of openness to new trends and reflects the innovative and creative spirit of the Silk Road. When I work with Eastern and Western musicians, I constantly have to face challenges in a concrete way and discover how to bring these two trends together. My affinity for certain string resonances (the subtlety of the Tajik tanbur, for example) enriches my musical writing. As the strings have the ability to resonate in sympathy with each other, I have found new perspectives for this ensemble project here. I have already worked on a Maqam et Créations project with the Royaumont Foundation. It was very fruitful and a wonderful experience that allowed us to work with French, Syrian, Andalusian, Armenian and Iranian musicians. My new piece will be written for the six musicians of the Percussions de Strasbourg, five singers of traditional oriental music, and a traditional oriental musician: sato/tanbur – sato-tadjik rubbed-string instrument. The concert will take the form of an intermission-free performance lasting approximately 80 minutes. My composition will be an encounter between traditional and contemporary music based on percussion and voices. The performance will take the form of a journey elaborated around ancient Pamirian melodies with complex and irregular rhythms. I will extract rhythmic material from other traditions as well, and sometimes insert an element of fiction into my metrical rhythm as if I were trying to describe dances from an imaginary culture. In this way, I will apply transcription methods as a kind of energy transfer from one source to another, collecting here and there fragments of Tajik, Andalusian and Syrian traditions from different periods that will form the basis of my imaginary sound for this contemporary work. The transcriptions of Syrian and Pamirian melodies will have their own directional energy that will influence my composition. This intertextuality will energize the work and the way we feel the composition. These transcriptions will be of a great variety: abstract like an acceleration of harmonic rhythms in an ancient Pamirian melody or a deceleration like in an early Renaissance motet; or visceral like a heartbeat or a repetitive series of flamenco guitar rasgueado’s. Their energy will allow us to place them in their historical and cultural context. Then I will compact these rhythmic processes, which will encourage me to write measure by measure, taking into account the energies. The incorporation of certain complex rhythms of traditional music also poses a great challenge. In general, most of my work consists of transcribing falaki (destiny music) rhythms. For example, for falaki, most rhythms are 5/8 (1-2/1-2-3). Nowadays, however, there are more 6/8 or 7/8. This way of using the old rhythmic tools is the essence of contemporary music. This composition work is intended for the Percussions de Strasbourg and voices. My intention is to focus more on the rhythms and vocal aspects of maqams. Beyond the structure of maqams, it is their proximity to the human voice that attracts me. Because of my roots, I have within me this language, this ability to use it and to appropriate it within the framework of my approach as a composer. More than a form, the maqam is a language and a culture. My sensitivity for the resonances of the strings (the subtlety of the sound of the tadjiko tanbur, for example), suggests a vision of contemporary music to me. Thanks to the richness of these resonances, I think I will find in this project of artistic encounters, another metaphor which would be that of an artistic and musical entity. This way of working with ancient forms, once again, is the very essence of my musical work. I think that this kind of collaboration between voices and instruments, between tradition and modernity, will encourage us to reflect and listen.