CURATION
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from this page:
by Matrix
Network Node
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Name:
Kiya Tabassian كيا طبسيان
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City/Place:
Montreal
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Country:
Canada
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Hometown:
Tehran, Iran
Current News
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What's Up?
Inspired by the ancient city illuminating the East and West, Constantinople was founded in 2001 in Montreal by its artistic director, Kiya Tabassian.
The ensemble has 19 albums to its credit on labels Analekta, Atma, World Village, Buda Musique, Ma Case, Dreyer Gaido and Glossa. Over the course of the decade, Constantinople has created nearly 50 works and travelled to more than 240 cities in 53 countries.
Life & Work
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Bio:
Setar virtuoso and acclaimed composer, Kiya Tabassian has carved out a privileged place on the international music scene with his ensemble Constantinople and also as a soloist. Past master in cross-cultural musical encounters, he travels across the five continents for presenting his creations and his music on stages from all over the world.
At 14 years old, Kiya Tabassian emigrates with his family to Quebec, bringing with him a few years of training in Persian scholarly music and his budding career on the Iranian musical scene. Determined to become a musician, composer and, more broadly, a carrier of memory, he pursues his training in Persian music as an autodidact and through his recurrent meetings with Reza Gassemi and Kayhan Kalhor. In parallel, he studies musical composition at the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal with Gilles Tremblay.
In 2001, he cofounds Constantinople with the idea of developing an ensemble of musical creations at the crossroads of multiple encounters; drawing from the heritage of the Middle-Ages and the Renaissance, from Europe to the Mediterranean and to the Middle-East. Since then, he has assumed artistic direction and has developed more than fifty programs with his ensemble.
As seasoned migrant, he never ceases to explore different trails: from medieval manuscripts to contemporary aesthetics, from Mediterranean Europe to the East or passing through the open spaces of the Baroque New World. Through the lens of research and creation, he collaborates with leading artists of the international scene such as singers Marco Beasley, Françoise Atlan, Savina Yannatou and Suzie Leblanc; the Mandigo griot Ablaye Cissoko; the Greek ensemble En Chordais, the Belgian duo Belem and the American group The Klezmatics; sarangi virtuoso Dhruba Ghosh, Syrian clarinetist Kinan Azmeh and kamancheh grand master Kayhan Kalhor.
Regularly hosted in some of the most prestigious concert halls and festivals in the world such as the Salle Pleyel in Paris, the Berlin Philharmonic, the Festival of Sacred Music of Fez in Morocco, the Festival d’Aix in France, the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto, the Cervantino Festival in Mexico, the Carthage Festival in Tunisia, the Onassis Cultural Center in Athens and BOZAR in Brussels; Tabassian’s music is appreciated and recognized by the public as well as professionals and critics. So far, he has recorded more than 25 albums, including 20 with Constantinople, and has presented nearly 1,000 concerts in more than 240 cities across 54 countries.
He has contributed to many eclectic projects as a composer, performer and improviser. To cite a few, he regularly collaborated with the Société Radio-Canada since 1996 and actively participated in the international project MediMuses from 2002 to 2005. He was a member of a research group on the history and the repertoire of Mediterranean music and acted as contributor to several publishing and recording projects. He also intervened in the Atlas ensemble (Netherlands) since 2009 and contributed to the Atlas Academy as a tutor, a double project aimed at conjoining contemporary music and oral traditions together.
Numerous musical groups and institutions have called on his talents as a composer, including the Montreal Symphonic Orchestra, the Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, Bradyworks and the European Union from Radio-Télévision. He has also composed the music of several documentary and fiction films such as Jabaroot and Voices of the Unheard. In 2017, as part of the 375th anniversary of Montreal, he composed the anthem “Mémoires d’Ahuntsic”, offered as a legacy to the city of Montreal. In 2020, he co-signs with poet Hélène Dorion, the musical and poetic suite “Le temps des forêts”, a poignant artistic work based on memories and lived stories collected from Montreal’s CHSLD residents.
Kiya was a member of the Conseil des arts de Montréal for seven years; including as active chairman of musical decision-making committee for three years. He is currently a member of the Board of Directors of the Conseils des arts et des lettres du Québec. He was also mandated by the Conseil Québécois de la musique to assemble a study committee on the role of world music in the field of concert music.
His desire to establish a space for creation, meetings, exchanges and the transmission of knowledge between professional musicians and the Quebecois public, led him to cofound the Centre des musiciens du monde. Founded in Montreal 2017, he also acts as artistic director of the Centre. Since then, the Centre has granted more than 50 musicians to benefit from the residency programs and to create more than 20 concerts. Tabassian also directs the record collection with the ANALEKTA label, of which the latest releases have won several awards.
Since many years, the ensemble of his work is supported by the Conseil des arts de Montréal, the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec and the Canada Council for the Arts.
Clips (more may be added)
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Metamorfosi (bande-annonce/teaser) - Constantinople (Kiya Tabassian, dir.)
228 views
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Metamorfosi (intro) - Constantinople (Kiya Tabassian, dir.)
370 views
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Kiya Tabassian & Hamin Honari, Full concert / دو نوازی سه تار و تمبک کیا طبسیان و هامین هنری
329 views
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CONSTANTINOPLE (Kiya Tabassian, dir) & A FILETTA / Payâm - Ecu di celu - Rouz-o Shab
264 views
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CONSTANTINOPLE (Kiya Tabassian, dir) & A FILETTA / Letterella - Bi Tô
248 views
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Dimitrie Cantemir (1673-1723) - Le prince compositeur / The Composer Prince (bande-annonce/teaser)
352 views
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Le temps des forêts (bande-annonce) - Constantinople (Kiya Tabassian), Hélène Dorion, Suzie LeBlanc
258 views
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Setar Solo Kiya Tabassian - Mahour - تکنوازی سه تار کیا طبسیان در دستگاه ماهور
335 views
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Kayhan Kalhor & Kiya Tabassian Live in Toronto - دونوازی سه تار کیهان کلهر و کیا طبسیان
274 views
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Kiya Tabassian & Pooria Pournazeri - Part 1 - Improvisation in Nava - کیا طبسیان و پوریا پورناظری
221 views
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Kiya Tabassian, setar - Hamin Honari, tombak / دو نوازی سه تار و تمبک کیا طبسیان و هامین هنری -
394 views
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Souffles / Breathings - Constantinople (Kiya Tabassian, dir.), Darlene Gijuminag & Mongun-ool Ondar
391 views
For all roads here lead to Black Rome, and everywhere, but all pathways lead to Bahia.
I created this matrix so the world might discover elemental cultural genius here in Bahia, Brazil: João do Boi (rest in power), Roberto Mendes, Raymundo Sodré and magisterial others... But following the dictates of logic, in order to make these artists discoverable worldwide, the matrix must, to the greatest extent possible, do likewise for all creators on the planet...
Pardal/Sparrow
The Integrated Global Creative Economy: uncoiling from this sprawling Indigenous, African, Sephardic and then Ashkenazic, Arabic, European, Asian cultural matrix.
The mathematics of the small world phenomenon transforming the creative universe into a creative village wherein all are connected by short pathways to all.
Tap the grey crosses on somebody's Matrix Page to recommend that person for the categories next to those crosses.
(Crosses visible when you are logged in)
The crosses will turn green.
That person/category will appear in your My Curation & Recommendations.
You will appear in that person's Incoming Curation and Recommendations.
You and the person you are recommending will be pulled by mathematical gravity to within discoverable distance of everybody else inside the Matrix...
In a small world great things are possible.
"Thanks, this is a brilliant idea!!"
—Alicia Svigals (NEW YORK CITY): Apotheosis of klezmer violinists
"Dear Sparrow: I am thrilled to receive your email! Thank you for including me in this wonderful matrix."
—Susan Rogers (BOSTON): Director of the Berklee Music Perception and Cognition Laboratory ... Former personal recording engineer for Prince; "Purple Rain", "Sign o' the Times", "Around the World in a Day"
"Dear Sparrow, Many thanks for this – I am touched!"
—Julian Lloyd Webber (LONDON): Premier cellist in UK; brother of Andrew (Evita, Jesus Christ Superstar, Cats, Phantom of the Opera...)
"This is super impressive work ! Congratulations ! Thanks for including me :)))"
—Clarice Assad (RIO DE JANEIRO/CHICAGO): Pianist and composer with works performed by Yo Yo Ma and orchestras around the world
"We appreciate you including Kamasi in the matrix, Sparrow."
—Banch Abegaze (LOS ANGELES): manager, Kamasi Washington
"Thanks! It looks great!....I didn't write 'Cantaloupe Island' though...Herbie Hancock did! Great Page though, well done! best, Randy"
This Matrix was conceived under a Spiritus Mundi ranging from the quilombos and senzalas of Cachoeira and Santo Amaro to Havana and the provinces of Cuba to the wards of New Orleans to the South Side of Chicago to the sidewalks of Harlem to the townships of South Africa to the villages of Ireland to the Roma camps of France and Belgium to the Vienna of Beethoven to the shtetls of Eastern Europe...*
Sodré
*...in conversation with Raymundo Sodré, who summed up the irony in this sequence by opining for the ages: "Where there's misery, there's music!" Hence A Massa, anthem for the trod-upon folk of Brazil, which blasted from every radio between the Amazon and Brazil's industrial south until...
And hence a platform whereupon all creators tend to accessible proximity to all other creators, irrespective of degree of fame, location, or the censor.
Matrix Ground Zero is the Recôncavo, bewitching and bewitched, contouring the resplendent Bay of All Saints (end of clip below, before credits), absolute center of terrestrial gravity for the disembarkation of enslaved human beings (and for the sublimity these people created), the bay presided over by Brazil's ineffable Black Rome (where Bule Bule is seated below, around the corner from where we built this matrix as an extension of our record shop).
Assis Valente's (of Santo Amaro, Bahia) "Brasil Pandeiro" filmed by Betão Aguiar
Betão Aguiar
("Black Rome" is an appellation per Caetano, via Mãe Aninha of Ilê Axé Opô Afonjá.)
Replete with Brazilian greatness, but we listened to Miles Davis and Jimmy Cliff in there too; visitors are David Dye & Kim Junod for NPR/WXPN
I opened the shop in Salvador, Bahia in 2005 in order to create an outlet to the wider world for magnificent Brazilian musicians.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar found us (he's a huge jazz fan), David Byrne, Oscar Castro-Neves... Spike Lee walked past the place while I was sitting on the stoop across the street drinking beer and listening to samba from the speaker in the window...
But we weren't exactly easy for the world-at-large to get to. So in order to extend the place's ethos I transformed the site associated with it into a network wherein Brazilian musicians I knew would recommend other Brazilian musicians, who would recommend others...
And as I anticipated, the chalky hand of God-as-mathematician intervened: In human society — per the small-world phenomenon — most of the billions of us on earth are within some 6 or fewer degrees of each other. Likewise, within a network of interlinked artists as I've described above, most of these artists will in the same manner be at most a handful of steps away from each other.
So then, all that's necessary to put the Brazilians within possible purview of the wide wide world is to include them among a wide wide range of artists around that world.
If, for example, Quincy Jones is inside the matrix, then anybody on his page — whether they be accessing from a campus in L.A., a pub in Dublin, a shebeen in Cape Town, a tent in Mongolia — will be close, transitable steps away from Raymundo Sodré, even if they know nothing of Brazil and are unaware that Sodré sings/dances upon this planet. Sodré, having been knocked from the perch of fame and ground into anonymity by Brazil's dictatorship, has now the alternative of access to the world-at-large via recourse to the vast potential of network theory.
...to the degree that other artists et al — writers, researchers, filmmakers, painters, choreographers...everywhere — do also. Artificial intelligence not required. Real intelligence, yes.
The deep roots of this project are in Manhattan, where Allen Klein (managed the Beatles and The Rolling Stones) called me about royalties for the estate of Sam Cooke... where Jerry Ragovoy (co-wrote Time is On My Side, sung by the Stones; Piece of My Heart, Janis Joplin of course; and Pata Pata, sung by the great Miriam Makeba) called me looking for unpaid royalties... where I did contract and licensing for Carlinhos Brown's participation on Bahia Black with Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock...
...where I rescued unpaid royalties for Aretha Franklin (from Atlantic Records), Barbra Streisand (from CBS Records), Led Zeppelin, Mongo Santamaria, Gilberto Gil, Astrud Gilberto, Airto Moreira, Jim Hall, Wah Wah Watson (Melvin Ragin), Ray Barretto, Philip Glass, Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd for his interest in Bob Marley compositions, Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam and others...
...where I worked with Earl "Speedo" Carroll of the Cadillacs (who went from doo-wopping as a kid on Harlem streetcorners to top of the charts to working as a janitor at P.S. 87 in Manhattan without ever losing what it was that made him special in the first place), and with Jake and Zeke Carey of The Flamingos (I Only Have Eyes for You)... stuff like that.
Yeah this is Bob's first record contract, made with Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd of Studio One and co-signed by his aunt because he was under 21. I took it to Black Rock to argue with CBS' lawyers about the royalties they didn't want to pay (they paid).
Matrix founding creators are behind "one of 10 of the best (radios) around the world", per The Guardian.
Salvador is our base. If you plan to visit Bahia, there are some things you should probably know and you should first visit:
www.salvadorbahiabrazil.comAcross the creative universe... For another list, reload page.
This list is random, and incomplete. Reload the page for another list.
Ex Terra Brasilis
Wolfram MathWorld
UNIVERSAL
Alicia Svigals
Susan Rogers
Julian Lloyd Webber
Clarice Assad
Kamasi Washington
Randy Brecker
Roberto Mendes
Luciano Calazans
Gustavo Caribé
J Velloso
Lázaro Ramos
Fernando Guerreiro
Maria Marighella
Russell Okung
Bule Bule
Caetano Veloso
RÁDIO MATRIX