Persian
Just now I came across an interesting piece of music on medici.tv. It was new to me in many ways, the event was "Gala Concert for the 2022 Azrieli Music Prizes", so who is Azrieli? From wikipedia, David Azrieli is philanthropist and the prize was set by Sharon Azrieli.
The venue was Maison symphonique de Montréal (Montreal, Canada). La Maison Symphonique was built in 2009, "The hall is home to the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, the Metropolitan Orchestra, I Musici de Montreal, Les Violons du Roy and other classical music ensembles."
The orchestra was Orchestre Métropolitain de Montréal, founded in 1981, artistic director and principal conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin since 2000.
Conductor was Alexandre Bloch, "Music Director of Orchestre National de Lille since September 2016."
One would expect some Israel music, or maybe some French lyrics. Surprisingly no. The first piece of 3, "Shāhīn-nāmeh" by Iman Habibi, was some Persian ancient music, for voice and orchestra, "with words by 14th-century Persian poet Shahin Shirazi." And it was surprisingly good! The voice piece sounded like Mongolian. Even though one did not understand a thing, the singing was beautiful.
Dr. Iman Habibi, "Iranian-Canadian composer and pianist, composer of the Canadian Music Centre, and is represented by SOCAN Foundation in Canada"
From Wikipedia, "Shahin or Shaheen, is a persian and kurdish male given name which is the generic term for hawk or falcon, although in specific, the peregrine falcon. The name Shahin is a composite of two nouns, "shah" - king and "īn" - which is a sign of proportion, meaning "royal", literally "king of the birds"
From one article about the program:
Iman Habibi‘s commission is Shāhīn-nāmeh, a song cycle for voice and orchestra based on the 14th-century Judeo-Persian poetry of Shahin Shirazi. Habibi, winner of the Azrieli Commission for Jewish Music, describes it as “incorporating a Persian traditional singing style in the solo part against a backdrop of Western classical instruments.”
The composer adds: “The result will be an exciting fresh sound, a marriage of many different cultural and musical languages. It is my hope that Shāhīn-nāmeh can bring much-deserved attention to this little-known poetry, but also show the close affinity that has existed historically between Persians and Jews dating back centuries.”
When look for the word "nāmeh", Shahnameh is the top result, meaning "The Book of Kings" - by a different poet, I suppose. And the word was used in combination with some others, just without a definition. I suppose it refers to a book or a poem, or a legend story (less likely). It might be simply an article regarding any person. The direct translation of Shāhīn-nāmeh would be Shahin's poem, isn't it?
Shahin Shirazi "was a Persian Jewish poet in the 14th century," works: "Musā-nāmah was composed in 1327, and includes narratives from Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy," also "versification of the Book of Genesis, Bereshit-nāmah, was composed around 1358." That explains how it can be part of the programs.
The vocalist was Sepideh Raissadat. She also played the Setar, "a type of lute used in Persian traditional music, played solo or accompanying voice." Look at her story, how rich is the experience! "She began studying Radif (the Repertoire of Persian classical music) at the age of 9 with the famous Persian singer Parisa and continued with Parviz Meshkatian and Mohammad Reza Lotfi.. B.A. in Painting, she moved to Italy to pursue her artistic education. She graduated in Musicology majoring in Ethnomusicology from the University of Bologna.. academically researched pre-Islamic ancient Persian music. Currently, her major research area is focused on Sassanid music."
Even though the remote country is only in one's imagination, even such imagination is plagued by various bans and restrictions, it is amazing to see the traditional clothing, hear the traditional way of singing. I say it for my own tradition too. If some art is rarely known, and suddenly you know people are working on it, and it turned out to be nice, how wonderful is that.
That said, I am not fond of Chinese traditional instruments. Most of them are not refined, making high pitched noises, having repetitions that drive one mad. In the programs, the 2nd piece (like a psalm) is similar to the first one, in that it is soprano and orchestra. The 3rd piece is Shō/Suona/Sheng, that is, Chinese traditional instrument. That's very curious arrangement.
Sassanid Empire, "224 to 651 CE" that's such unfamiliar history. Who would teach that?
I have spent far more time on looking for related knowledge for the 20-minute piece. The remaining question is what the lyrics is, how is it derived from the poem. Because one cannot just figure that out by listen to the music again. The composer's twitter mentioned "based on the story of Queen Esther." Anyway, it is an interesting eye-opener.
Update: found a podcast