Word: musicalities
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Artists' House is so completely packed that at least 40 people are crowded around its entrance in the adjacent hallway. Inside, the heat is on - both literally and figuratively. An audience of mostly twentysomething men and women is here to see Mohsen Namjoo, the new local sensation whose music combines classical Persian music and poetry with such Western imports as rock and blues. While dozens of traditional, classical and pop music concerts are staged in Tehran every year, rock's standing is still unsettled. What has made this event permissible under the conservative strictures that govern the arts in Iran...
...audience's impatience with the critique format is emblematic of a generational yearning for greater freedom of expression in the cultural sphere. Music's status is contested in Islam, with some jurisprudents arguing that it is halal, permissible, and others insisting that it is haraam, forbidden. Following Iran's 1979 revolution, the new Islamic Republic at first banned all music. Although most classical and traditional music was soon allowed again, it wasn't until moderate President Khatami's term in 1997 that regulations loosened up sufficiently to allow Iranian rock band to spring up in garages across Tehran. Today, even...
...This vacuum, this missing musical space, leads to exaggerated reactions to someone like Namjoo, whose music is still very immature," says Ramin Sadighi, owner of the Hermes record company. To promote music in the public sphere, Sadighi and a few others formed the Hafta group last year. Another leading member of Hafta, Sohrab Mahdavi of the online culture magazine Tehranavenue.com, had in 2002 helped start an underground rock music contest...
...thought there are perhaps two or three other bands like us in Tehran," says Payman Mazaheri, singer of the now-dissolved band Fara, whose song "Mosquito" won first place. "All of a sudden we realized that kids across Tehran were all hard at work making rock music. It was motivating," he adds nostalgically. Unable to receive permits, Fara ultimately dissolved as band members had to go about making a living. The only top-ranking band from the 2002 contest that has survived financially is 127, and it has done so in part by touring Europe...
...build a fan base, the typical contemporary Tehran music act relies on word of mouth and MySpace and YouTube. The rapper Yas, whose socially critical rhymes have gained him a considerable following, has given up trying to get a permit. "Rap's beat is transgressive, it doesn't matter what your lyrics are," he explains. Even artists who have successfully promoted their music online are unable to make any money without legally publishing their music, and that requires obtaining a permit from the Ministry of Culture - a procedure so arcane that most attempts fail. Many, like the former rock band...