Medium for centuries of life wisdom
Photo: Tamineh Monzavi
Today, Sunday, March 3rd, is Music Freedom Day and it is fitting to announce that sisters Mahsa and Marjan Vahdat from Iran will be performing during Førdefestivalen this summer.
In their homeland they cannot sing in public, because the authorities do not allow people to hear women sing, but in Førde church they can let the tunes flow. And yesterday there was a big concert in Washington DC with Mahsa and their newest musical partners, the world-renowned string quartet Kronos Quartet . The concert marks the release of the album Placeless . Marjan could not be there, because she is a victim of President Trump's ban on Iranians from entering the United States unless they have a Green Card, as Mahsa does.
Mysterious power
The sound of the voices of sisters Mahsa and Marjan Vahdat and the intensity of their singing have taken them to concert halls all over the world. It is sensitive and warm like a shimmering summer mist and full of mysterious power. In 2015 they gave a concert at Førdefestivalen for the first time. They sang from the album Twinklings of Hope together with Nils Økland and Sverre Apeland. They have sung with many different musicians over the years and when they come back this summer, it is with a new repertoire together with Gjermund Silset (bass), Kenneth Ekornes (percussion) and Mehdi Timorlein from Iran on the flute instrument ney.
Parents died
The past year has been demanding for Mahsa and Marjan Vahdat, as they lost both their mother and father in a few months. The parents have been ardent supporters of their daughters. First by letting them share their strong passion for old and new Persian poetry and gradually by helping them maintain the hope of being able to flourish as artists despite all the sanctions. The story of how the two of them got tickets to the very first concert held in Tehran after the revolution is touching. By then, many years had passed without Iranians being able to hear anything other than military music. The joy of the people at having access to live music again was enormous. Marjan and Mahsa's father stood in line and waited for hours to be able to give his daughters this gift.
Art music
When you hear the distinctive singing style of Mahsa and Marjan Vahdat, you might think that they are performing folk music, but all the songs have well-known composers. Just as India distinguishes between the country's folk music and art music, which, due to its tonality and distinctive singing style, can easily be mistaken for folk music by us Norwegians, Iran has a similar division. There is a very old tradition of art music of its own, and new music is still being composed in the same style. Mahsa herself composes the melodies for many of the songs they perform.
Photo: Tamineh Monzavi
"Pilgrimage to Friendship"
Participation in the album Lullabies from the Axes of Evil, which Kirkelig Kulturverksted (KKV) released in 2004, helped to speed up the careers of Mahsa and Marjan. Since then, KKV has released several solo albums and records where the two sisters sing together. International music journals outdo each other in praise of their vocal brilliance and musical power. "Pilgrimage to beauty", "intensely intimate" are words that Songlines uses about Mahsa's record The Sun Will Rise (2016). About Marjan's album Serene Hope (2017) the magazine Lira writes: "When I listen to the album, I am completely speechless and still before the indescribable beauty of the music. The album is so well done in every way that it can't be better than this."
Moved to tears
When the sisters perform in Turkey, many Iranians fly over just to hear them sing. The texts they perform are both contemporary poetry and poems by poets like Rumi and Hafez, who lived several hundred years ago, and with whom Iranians still have a strong connection. So it is perhaps not surprising that Iranians travel long distances to hear them and that the audience is often moved to tears.
But the fact that people in Europe, the USA, Australia and New Zealand also appreciate this is quite interesting. The Vahdat sisters always sing in Farsi. When they nevertheless reach people in the West, it says something about the expressive power of the poetry that flows through the artists' musicality. The power in the way they sing has to do with the content of the song and people notice it. There are centuries-old mystical traditions, life in all its breadth and depth, love, sorrow, joy and spirit. The singers become like mediums, through which centuries-old wisdom of life flows through them.