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Axiom Of Choice (band)
Axiom of Choice is a southern California (United States) based world music group of Iranian émigrés who perform a modernized fusion style rooted in Persian classical music with inspiration from other classical Middle Eastern and Eastern paradigms. History Led by Loga Ramin Torkian, who plays a variant of a guitar of his own invention that is fretted to play quarter tones, the band has a sound combining soaring female vocals, Persian rhythms and melodies, and progressive Western production styles. The band was named after the mathematical concept, the axiom of choice. The melodies and rhythms of Persia's radif tradition are mixed with various Middle Eastern and Eastern motifs as well as subtle electronic instrumentation. Led by Iranian-born nylon-string classical guitar, quarter-tone guitar, and tarbass player and musical director Loga Ramin Torkian, the septet incorporates a global range of influences into its sound. Axiom of Choice remains rooted in the musical heritage of T ...
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California
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territories of the United States by population, most populous U.S. state and the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 3rd largest by area. It is also the most populated Administrative division, subnational entity in North America and the 34th most populous in the world. The Greater Los Angeles area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nation's second and fifth most populous Statistical area (United States), urban regions respectively, with the former having more than 18.7million residents and the latter having over 9.6million. Sacramento, California, Sacramento is the state's capital, while Los Angeles is the List of largest California cities by population, most populous city in the state and the List of United States cities by population, ...
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Persia
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmenistan to the north, by Afghanistan and Pakistan to the east, and by the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf to the south. It covers an area of , making it the 17th-largest country. Iran has a population of 86 million, making it the 17th-most populous country in the world, and the second-largest in the Middle East. Its largest cities, in descending order, are the capital Tehran, Mashhad, Isfahan, Karaj, Shiraz, and Tabriz. The country is home to one of the world's oldest civilizations, beginning with the formation of the Elamite kingdoms in the fourth millennium BC. It was first unified by the Medes, an ancient Iranian people, in the seventh century BC, and reached its territorial height in the sixth century BC, when Cyrus the Great fou ...
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Niyaz
Niyaz ( fa, نياز) is an Iranian Canadian musical duo. The group was created in 2004 by DJ, programmer/producer and remixer Carmen Rizzo, vocalist and hammered dulcimer player Azam Ali, formerly of the group Vas, and Ali's husband, Loga Ramin Torkian, of the Iranian crossover group Axiom Of Choice. In 2013, Carmen Rizzo announced via Facebook that he was retiring from Niyaz. "Niyaz" means "yearning" in Persian, Urdu and Turkish. Niyaz's music, described as "mystical music with a modern edge", is primarily a blend of Sufi mysticism and trance electronica. Niyaz adapts Persian, Indian and Mediterranean folk sounds, poetry and songs including the poetry of Sufi mystic Rumi, with Western electronic instrumentation and programming. Their self-titled debut album, released in 2005, combined 13th century Sufi and Urdu poetry with "swirling, hypnotic beats". Their 2008 follow-up album, Nine Heavens, featured two discs; the second disc contained acoustic renditions of the tracks on ...
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Shahram Nazeri
Shahram Nazeri ( ku, شارام نازری, translit=Şaram Nazirî, ; born 18 February 1950) is a contemporary Iranian tenor of Kurdish origin from Kermanshah, Iran, who sings Sufi music, classical and traditional Kurdish and Persian music. He has been accompanied by some of the masters of Iranian traditional music such as Jalil Shahnaz, Hossein Alizadeh, Jalal Zolfonoun, Parviz Meshkatian and Faramarz Payvar. He has also worked with his son Hafez, a composer. Nazeri was the first musician to include Rumi's poetry within Persian music, thus establishing a tradition of Sufi music within both Persian classical music and Kurdish music. ''The Christian Science Monitor'' has called him "Iran's Pavarotti". Career Shahram Nazeri has been established as a significant artist in Iran since the 1970s. His first albums which were in the form of mutual albums with Mohammad-Reza Shajarian, were published by the Chavoush institute by the end of the late 1970s. The content of these albums we ...
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Kayhan Kalhor
Kayhan Kalhor ( fa, کیهان کلهر, ku, کەیھان کەڵھوڕ, translit=Keyhan Kelhur, born 24 November 1964) is an Iranian-Kurdish kamancheh and setar player and vocalist composer and master of classical Iranian traditional music. Early life and education Kayhan Kalhor was born in Tehran to a Kurdish family. He began studying music at the age of seven. By the age of thirteen, he was playing in the National Orchestra of Radio and Television of Iran. Continuing his music studies under various teachers, he studied in the Iranian radif tradition and also travelled to study in the northern part of Khorasan province, where music traditions have Kurdish and Turkic influences as well as Persian. At a musical conservatory in Tehran, Kalhor worked under the directorship of Mohammad-Reza Lotfi who is from the north-east of Iran. Kalhor also travelled in the northwestern provinces of Iran. At age 17, he left Iran and moved to Italy to study music in Rome. He migrated to Italy by ...
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Hossein Alizadeh
Hossein Alizadeh ( fa, حسین علیزاده) is an Iranian musician, composer, radif-preserver, researcher, teacher, and tar, shurangiz and setar instrumentalist and improviser. He has performed with such musicians as Shahram Nazeri, Mohammad-Reza Shajarian, Alireza Eftekhari and Jivan Gasparyan, as well as with a number of orchestras and ensembles. Music career Alizadeh was born in 1951 in Tehran. His father was from Urmia and his mother from Arak. As a teenager he attended secondary school at a music conservatory until 1975. His music studies continued at the University of Tehran, where his focus was composition and performance. He began postgraduate studies at the Tehran University of Art. After the Iranian Revolution, he resumed his studies at the University of Berlin, where he studied composition and musicology. Alizadeh plays the ''tar'' and ''setar''. He has performed with two of Iran's national orchestras, as well as with the Aref Ensemble, the Shayda Ensemble, and ...
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Naqareh
The ''naqareh'', ''naqqāra'', ''nagara'' or ''nagada'' is a Middle Eastern drum with a rounded back and a hide head, usually played in pairs. It is thus a membranophone of the kettle drum variety. The term ''naqqāra'' (), also ''naqqarat'', ''naqqarah'', ''naqqåre'', ''nakkare'', ''nagora'' comes from the Arabic verb ''naqr-'' that means "to strike, beat". The instrument was also adopted in Europe following the Crusades, and known as the naccaire or naker. Construction The rounded section of a naqqara is made of baked clay, while the flat side consists of treated skin fastened around the rim with string which is tightened over the back of the bow Playing This percussion instrument is often played in pairs, where one ''naqqara'' will produce low pitch beats called ''nar'' and the other for the high pitch beats. The instruments are beaten with short wooden sticks bent outward at the upper ends called ''damka''. Varieties Iraq and the other Arab countries ''Naqqārāt'' is t ...
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Tombak
The ''tombak'' (Persian: تمبک), ''tonbak'' (تنبک), or ''zarb'' (ضَرب) is an Iranian goblet drum. It is considered the principal percussion instrument of Persian music. The tombak is normally positioned diagonally across the torso while the player uses one or more fingers and/or the palm(s) of the hand(s) on the drumhead, often (for a ringing timbre) near the drumhead's edge. Sometimes, tombak players wear metal finger rings for an extra-percussive "click" on the drum's shell. Tombak virtuosi often perform solos lasting ten minutes or more. Description The tombak is a single-headed goblet drum is about 18 inches in height with a 28 centimetre diameter head. Its shell is carved from a single block of (sometimes highly figured, knotted or marbled) wood, maybe with a carved design or geometric pattern (such as furrows, flutes, diamonds and/or spirals—it is often a costly, heirloom-type or vintage musical instrument). At the bottom the shell is somewhat thicker tha ...
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Pejman Hadadi
Pejman Hadadi (born 1969, in Tehran) is an internationally acclaimed Iranian tonbak player and Persian classical musician. In 1990 Hadadi emigrated to the United States. In 1995, he joined Dastan Ensemble. Awards *Durfee Foundation Master Musician Award (2001) Recordings *"Whisper" with Ali Akbar Moradi, tanbur (Kereshmeh Records, 2001) *"Midnight Sun" with Hossein Behroozi-Nia, barbat (7/8 Productions, 2000) *"Fire of Passion" with Ali Akbar Moradi, tanbur (7/8 Productions, 1999) *"A Tale of Love" with Parisa & Hossein Omoumi, ney (Kereshmeh Records, 1999) *"Through Eternity" with Dastan Ensemble (Traditional Crossroads, 1997) *"Beyond Denial" with Axiom of Choice (X Dot 25, 1994) *"Scattering Stars Like Dust" with Kayhan Kalhor. (Traditional Crossroad 4288) *"in sare sodaei" with Pouya Saraei Pouya Saraei ( fa, پویا سرایی) is an Iranian composer, music arranger, conductor, lecturer, music critic, researcher, and santour instrumentalist. Biography He started p ...
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Mamak Khadem
Mamak Khadem (مامک خادم) is an Iranian-American world trance music singer. Called by Sandra Hughes "a nomad who uses her art to bridge cultural traditions”, Khadem is one of the few women singers in world trance music, a discipline normally dominated by men. She was the lead singer for the band Axiom Of Choice, has sung for various soundtracks, and currently works as a solo artist. Personal life Khadem was born in Tehran, Iran in 1961. She immigrated to the United States in 1977. By nature, she is a nomad, one who thrives on open spaces. By occupation, she is a bridge, one that connects geography to lore. In music, she is open to cultural influences, but she has chosen the classical Persian style as her base. Formerly of the sensational cross-cultural fusion ensemble AXIOM OF CHOICE, Mamak weaves a canopy, both simple and rich, for a stunningly emotional and spiritual musical experience that inspires new listeners to embrace cultural diversity and an awareness and apprec ...
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Radif (music)
Radif ( fa, ردیف, meaning ''order'') is a collection of many old melodic figures preserved through many generations by oral tradition. It organizes the melodies in a number of different tonal spaces called dastgah. The traditional music of Iran is based on the radif, which is a collection of old melodies that have been handed down by the masters to the students through the generations. Over time, each master's own interpretation has shaped and added new melodies to this collection, which may bear the master's name. The preservation of these melodies greatly depended on each successive generation's memory and mastery, since the interpretive origin of this music was expressed only through the oral tradition. To learn and absorb the essence of the radif, many years of repetition and practice are required. A master of the radif must internalize it so completely to be able to perform any part of it at any given time. The radif contains several different dastgahs which are dis ...
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