Vojna (2021) performed by Zagros Ensemble
10 May 2021, Camerata, music center, Helsinki
program note:
Vahid Eftekhar-Hosseini: Vojna
It all started with my encounter with Lamentations of ”Zagros”, months before I knew that I would have a chance to collaborate with an ensemble with the same name, thousands of kilometers away from my homeland.
Zagros is a long stretch of mountains covering almost a third of the Persian plateau, with a rich variety of ethnicities and cultures, music flowing in their everyday life as they work, make love, and deal with life, and with death.
It was to my great surprise to find some lament songs in the Balkan regions, so similar in spirit to Muyeh from Zagros, reminding me of the one pain the human race experiences regardless of their ”level of civilization”: that of birth and of death.
I am humbled by the enormous depth of these cultures, the master musician Ali Pour-Asadian whose Karna song dominates the piece, and whose craftsmanship I value way beyond my ”art”.
The journey of the piece took a turn by the encounter with a little girl who somehow got caught up in a civil war she did not belong to, and fought her way through life single-handedly, with courage and poetry.
Vahid E. Hosseini Helsinki
May 2021