Houbara - Resonanzen Iran #1

Reza Askari & Tanasgol Sabbagh | Parvaresh / Noori / Zahedi | Rojin Sharafi

The 2-day festival Houbara - Resonances Iran sees itself as a place of exchange, new encounters and shared experiences. The festival is dedicated to artists and ensembles who question genre boundaries and create and explore their own sound worlds. One focus - in addition to multi-layered music - is on Persian poetry, which has not only been part of world literature for centuries, but is also an important component of Iranian cultures in everyday life. Houbara is curated by Sophie Emilie Beha, NICA artist 2022.

Program 06.03:
19:00 Artist Talk w/ Padideh Naderi
20:00 Reza Askari & Tanasgol Sabbagh
21:00 Parvaresh / Noori / Zahedi
22:00 Rojin Sharafi

Program 7th March

The Houbara is an Iranian endemic migratory bird that is in danger of extinction. The title also refers to "The Conference of Birds" (منطق الطیر) by Fariduddin Attar - a great mystical poem that is one of the most important works of Persian literature. It describes the pilgrimage of thousands of birds of the world in search of an ideal king. In the end, thirty birds remain - and realize that they themselves are the king they are looking for.

In collaboration with NICA artist development, Timcheh e.V. and Yalda Yazdani.

Artist Talk w/ Padideh Naderi.
In conversation with Yalda Yazdani, Iranian musician Padideh Naderi will provide insights into her artistic work and biography in Iran. She has performed as a santoor player and singer in the traditional orchestra of Master Hasan Kianinejad or the Mehr National Orchestra, among others. On Tuesday, she will be featured in a duo concert. The conversation will be in English.

Reza Askari & Tanasgol Sabbagh
Bassist Reza Askari and spoken word writer Tanasgol Sabbagh first met for an artistic collaboration in June 2022 in Berlin as part of Klangteppich - the festival for music of the Iranian diaspora. Their musical poetry performance Dard I Door (Distant Pain) addresses the transgenerational pain in the family histories of the German-Iranian artists. Based on different personal and historical events in Iran and Germany - the different reasons for flight and migration of their families - Tanasgol and Reza trace in Dard I Door the stories of past generations in Iran and Germany in the form of audio tapes, musical improvisations and lyrical interventions.

Parvaresh / Noori / Zahedi
Azin Zahedi is a multi-instrumentalist with a background in Iranian classical music and transcultural electroacoustic music. She will play santoor, bansuri and flute as part of the performance. Nazanin Noori is a vocalist and plays modular synthesizers. Her practice is based on music that is featured in ritual practices. Her compositions are in the spherical realm of ambient, but have characteristics of doom electronics. Shabnam Parvaresh is a clarinetist and bass clarinetist whose improvisational language and electroacoustic work are based on combining elements of traditional Iranian folk music with elements of jazz. The trio explores different forms of minimalism: from heavy meditative sound spaces to paired chords and unwavering repetition. Bringing together different musical styles and recontextualizing unique harmonies are at the core of the trio's compositional work, along with the emotional narrative.

Rojin Sharafi
Rojin Sharafi is a Vienna-based, Tehran-born sound artist, performer and composer of electro-acoustic music who freely crosses the boundaries between genres. She creates completely unique musical textures through the use of analog, acoustic, and augmented instruments, as well as digital tools that she has developed herself. She is currently pursuing her master's degree in composition and sound engineering at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. Her debut album, Urns Waiting to be Fed, recorded with Zabte Zote, has been called "one of the most ecstatic and original hours of music [in 2019]."