Niyaz in concert at the University of Maryland, April 26, 2007

[johanna_hypatia]

Musical ambassadors of cross-cultural tolerance and understanding, the innovative Iranian-American musical group نياز Niyaz just spent two days at the University of Maryland, helping to teach a class on ethnomusicology, giving a matinee performance for the students, and tonight a public concert.

Comments

[ex_idragosa]

I'm sad I missed this. A friend of mine is going up to Philly tonight to seem them.

[johanna_hypatia]

Hope to see you at their next DC concert whenever that might be.

A young gentleman approached me after I got the CDs autographed. He asked if I'd been at the Rumi event at the Smithsonian and mentioned he'd been sitting next to me. Small Sufi music world, huh... I told him I had gone there with my Persian friend... but Ahmet Özhan sung all the Rumi lyrics in Turkish translation, so she couldn't understand. He sang only a little Persian text at one point, but using Turkish pronunciation, so she could sorta understand it. The equivalent for us would be English spoken with Swedish pronunciation, like in De Duve (The Dove).

[johanna_hypatia]

> I got the CDs autographed.

I also took a moment to talk with Azam about South Asian and Middle Eastern linguistics and watch her eyes light up.

Main thoRi Urdu bhi bolti hun.