Kayhan Kalhor & Erdal Erzincan

One of the most exciting of Kayhan Kalhor's innumerable projects and unique collaborations that have attracted audiences around the globe is his duo with the renowned Turkish baglama player Erdal Erzincan. The classical music traditions of Persia and of Ottoman Turkey that inspire the music of Kalhor and Erzincan share a great deal in common, including the ancient modal compositional system known as maqam, and the idea of improvisation plays a definitive role in their intensely spiritual and emotional performances. Their music is thoroughly modern and seeks to bring the listener into its trance-like realm by interweaving ecstatic rhythms with sensual melodic phrases. The result is a set of instrumental compositions that flow into each other like one continuous work, with gently drifting passages in which the two instruments echo and improvise on different phrases.