Live Stream
Darragh Morgan violin
Deirdre Cooper cello (in Farãghi)
Shiva Feshareki (Britain/Iran, 1987)
Zohra (2018) 5’
Fozié Majd (Iran, 1938)
Farãghi (In Absentia) UK Premiere (2017) 2’
Yannis Kyriakides (Cyprus, 1969)
Snake Music (Extract) (1993) 2’
Amir Mahyar Tafreshipour (Iran, 1974)
Pendar (2017) 7’
Arshia Samsaminia (Iran, 1989)
Beyond The Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response World Premiere (2020) 3’
Renowned for his nuanced approach to the violin, Darragh Morgan has had a prolific career performing and recording new music, while also stretching the genre’s definition across international borders. He has played pretty much everything, pretty much everywhere, touring tirelessly as a member of the Smith Quartet as well as the Fidelio Trio. Throughout his career, he has built long-lasting collaborations, including working with artists such as Iranian composer Amir Mahyar Tarfeshipour over years of music. The result is an artist who interprets music thoughtfully and carefully, offering lyrical and vulnerable interpretations of the pieces he has built a relationship with.
Morgan recorded Amir Mahyar Tafreshipour’s Pendar and Fozié Majd’s Farãghi (In Absentia) last year as part of an album showcasing modern Iranian composers. Both artists are known for their innovative approaches and for their cultivation of an ‘Iranian avant-garde’. Previously appearing as the conductor of Tafreshipour’s opera The Doll Behind the Curtain, Morgan has a long history with his work. He takes the instrumentalist’s seat for Pendar, a gorgeous work of fluttering notes that are taken through a cycle of instruments. Here, Morgan takes a version for solo violin. In Majd’s Farãghi (In Absentia), he honours a composer known for her work researching, collecting and documenting traditional Iranian folk music, taking these roots and applying them to her chamber compositions. Born in the late 1930s and active as a musician since the revolution in 1979, she was one of the country’s first composers to study contemporary music in the West, and has become one of the world’s leading ethnomusicologists.
Joining these artists in Morgan’s hcmf// performance are two composers from Iran’s new wave. Arshia Samsaminia and Shiva Feshareki both augment their violin compositions with electronics. Feshareki’s Zohra makes use of her live turntable manipulations, her stuttering drumwork interlocking with a constant stream of strings, as if pining for a breakbeat amidst a stubborn violin drone. Arshia Samsaminia’s music has been performed by some of the world’s most experimental ensembles; he creates stunning annotated scores that emphasise gesture and set up. At hcmf// 2020, Morgan gives the world premiere of his new work Beyond The Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response.
With an excerpt from Yannis Kyriakides’ Snake Music completing his performance, Morgan has conceived a programme that takes us outside of our homes, immersing us in the Iranian culture that informs these pieces of music. Supported by ‘video footage of iconic salt lakes, mountains and desert landscapes of Iran’, his performance emphasises the life that goes with the music. Morgan has used his choice of repertoire to create a fully transportive experience, filling out the space between pieces with field recordings from Baluchistan and interviews with the composers about their work.
Darragh Morgan thanks The Hinrichsen Foundation and The RVW Trust for their support in the recording Pendar at The Picture Gallery, Royal Holloway, University of London, as well as the Austrian Cultural Forum London for filming the performances of Farãghi (In Absentia), Beyond The Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response, Zohra and Snake Music