The Canadian Artwork Track Challenge has commissioned a tune cycle by Toronto composer Pouya Hamidi. The tune cycle, titled I Will Greet the Solar Once more, will make its premiere at Toronto Summer time Music on August 1.
I Will Greet the Solar Once more makes use of the poetry of 4 girls writers from Iran and the Iranian diaspora to discover far reaching themes like household, intimate love, and the evening itself. The journey begins in darkness, however ends in mild.
Pianist Steven Philcox and soprano Elizabeth Polese convey the work to life.
Pouya Hamidi, composer
Pouya Hamidi is the resident composer and pianist of the Ladom Ensemble, which he co-founded wth fellow College of Toronto music college students again in 2007. The ensemble has change into identified within the metropolis for his or her creative unique music and performances that mix Persian and Western influences, together with Jewish and Argentinian music, Serbian folks, and even progressive rock.
Hamidi is a local of Tehran, Iran, and got here to Canada on his personal on the age of 12, not talking English. He studied piano and composition, and finally turned a pupil on the Royal Conservatory’s Taylor Academy. Pouya studied composition and piano as a double main on the College of Toronto, and obtained a Masters of Sound Recording from McGill College in Montreal.
He’s explored a number of genres and modes of music, and has carried out in a variety of totally different ensembles, together with a 12-member prog-rock band.
Hamidi incorporates melodic and rhythmic parts gleaned from his research of conventional Iranian music to tell the brand new tune cycle. As a composer, different influences embody the vocal music of Olivier Messiaen, György Ligeti, and Maurice Ravel.
The Poets
Poetry is integrated into the work as a method of giving voice to Iranian girls writers, who are usually underrepresented in most concerns of world literature. Their work speaks to common themes of endurance and energy within the face of struggles, together with hope.
Sareh Farmand
Born in Tehran throughout the Islamic Revolution, Sareh Farmand moved to Vancouver, BC along with her household. Pistachios in My Pocket, her first revealed assortment of poetry, was revealed in 2022, and revolves round her household’s escape from Iran, and their early experiences in Canada. The work was longlisted for the Fred Cogswell Award for Excellence in Poetry. She earned levels in Worldwide Relations and Training from the College of British Columbia, and is a graduate of Simon Fraser College’s The Writing Studio. Sarah has labored extensively as a contract author and screenwriter.
Mehri Yalfani
Born in Hamadan, Iran, Mehri Yalfani studied electrical engineering on the Tehran College, and labored as knowledgeable engineer for 20 years. She had begun writing, nevertheless, in her teenagers, and revealed her first assortment of poetry as early as 1966. It will be greater than a decade earlier than she’d publish one other, and in the meanwhile, she raised three youngsters, and emigrated to France, then to Canada. She publishes each fiction and poetry in English and Persian, together with Tahmineh’s Silence, which was banned by the Iranian authorities. She has revealed extensively in Canada, and her works are sometimes utilized in post-secondary programs.
Forugh Farrokhzad
Forugh Farrokhzad (1935–1967) was an Iranian poet and filmmaker with a trailblazing spirit, famous for her trendy strategy to Persian poetry. She explored many controversial and difficult themes, together with the independence of girls, sensuality, and spoke in regards to the lives of girls in an period when the overwhelming majority of her contemporaries had been males. She has change into a permanent affect all through Iranian literature.
Sholeh Wolpé
Poet, playwright, literary translator, and librettist Sholeh Wolpé was born in Iran, and moved first to Trinidad, then England as a young person. She finally settled within the US, and now lives in Spain and California. She has written and revealed a number of collections of poetry and performs, 5 books of translations and three anthologies, together with the texts and librettos for choir and opera. She has received awards for her translations of Iranian poetry, together with that of twelfth century Sufi mystic poet Attar, and trendy poet Forugh Farrokhzad. Wolpé is at the moment a writer-in-residence on the College of California, Irvine.
The poems used embody:
- ‘Khaleh Parvin (Mamaly)’ — From Pistachios in My Pocket by Sareh Farmand. Printed by At Bay Press. Used with per-mission.
- ‘The Shadows’ — From Parastoo: Tales and Poems by Mehri Yalfani. Used with permission.
- ‘The Wind Will Blow Us Away’ and ‘I Will Greet the Solar Once more’ — From Poems from Sin — Chosen Poems of Forugh Farrokhzad, translated by poet Sholeh Wolpé
The Live performance
The live performance on August 1 additionally consists of Mendelssohn’s String Octet in E-flat Main, Op. 20, carried out by the week’s mentors at TSM, and one other world premiere, that of Robert Rival’s String Quartet No. 2.
Robert Rival grew up in Ottawa, and earned an MMus in composition and concept from the College of Ottawa. He went on to finish his doctorate in composition on the College of Toronto. He additionally earned an MFA in musical theatre composition from New York College.
He was the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra’s Resident Composer from 2011-2014. His music is impressed by the Canadian panorama, together with literature. His music is characterised by a recent prolonged tonal model, and has been carried out by orchestras and ensembles throughout Canada, Europe, and in Australia. Rival’s music has additionally been broadcast on CBC radio and NPR.
Different performers embody: Aaron Schwebel, violin; Barry Shiffman, violin; Shane Kim, violin; Yura Lee, violin; Keith Hamm, viola; ; Sharon Wei, viola; Leana Rutt, cello; Track Hee Lee, cello.
- Discover live performance particulars and tickets [HERE].
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Anya Wassenberg is the Toronto Metropolis Editor at Ludwig Van. Beforehand, she was a contract author with a specialty in tradition and journey for 3 many years, and a inventive writing teacher for Ontariolearn.
