Loss & Absence

By Aftab Darvishi and Rouzbeh Esfandarmaz

How this collaboration came to be

Rouzbeh Esfandarmaz has always been engaged in the idea of Loss and Absence as an inescapable reality of anyone’s l ife and being. Losing people, emotions, abilities, memories, feelings, or the absence of any of the mentioned and more. In 2017, he started a project named No one tells the clouds to stay aimed at this concept. For this, he gathered stories and narratives from different people around the world, with diverse backgrounds, and in their respective native language and composed music based on their stories. In April 2018, he presented the first portion of the idea in an hour-long performance in Mohsen Gallery, Tehran. For this performance, he was able to gather more than 30 different stories in thirty different languages about loss and absence.

However, in August 2018 when he lost his mother, he realized Loss in an immense portion and as a result, the project went AWOL until 2020 when he saw Aftab Darvishi. They are long-time friends and Aftab had already seen the performance in 2018. After some discussions, she stated her interest in joining forces on the concept. After extended talks about the concept and the project, they decided to go the opposite way of the initial project plan in 2017-18. Instead of concluding real stories and voices in the performance and compositions, they will go for a minimalistic and instrumental approach towards composition. However, they will try to gather melodies and musical innuendos from around the world. As in songs or chants about loss and absence. With Aftab’s extensive knowledge of composition and experimental approach to music production of Rouzbeh, they are trying to follow up the same project i n a story-telling musical way.

What we are planning to achieve

In this project, Aftab and Rouzbeh are joining forces to create something that is slightly not in the comfort zone of both artists. In other words, it is going to be challenging in different ways for both of them. Both have extensive classical music training and a load of performances. Aftab has previously studied classical piano performance at the University of Tehran, and Rouzbeh has studied classical clarinet at the Art University of Tehran. However, in recent years, and especially after coming to the Netherlands, they have both been involved in other musical realms as well.

Aftab has been active as a composer in the last 10 years. Besides, After graduating from Conservatorium Van Amsterdam and Koninklijk Conservatorium, Aftab has been regularly invited as a guest lecturer to the University of Tehran. The job has opened new horizons in her career which led to extensive research about Opera as a western form and implementing Eastern elements within this form. Additionally, she is going to start her Ph.D. Next month on the same topic at the University of Birmingham.

For the last 15 years, Rouzbeh has been active in making music, performances, and even instruments with a fusion of Iranian and western cultural mindsets. This integration of Iranian and western musical and cultural heritage is and has been the most dominant element in his artistic approach towards any project. He’s been composing for long and short feature films, composed, arranged, produced music for different artists and bands, and even did some sound design for movies and theaters and more. However, he had done all of them with this mindset of integration and fusion in mind. That’s why he did a master at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague’s art of sound department on the subject of How to integrate Iranian folk music with EDM. He is not bound to any genre or style of music.

Both Rouzbeh and Aftab believe that this project aims at creating an atmosphere in which the audience can feel this loss or absence. They are aiming at using as many diverse related melodies from different cultures in the world as possible. Every culture or people’s reaction to the concept of loss or absence is not the same. Then it’s obvious they are going to have a very different musical output in each one of them. Maybe the concept of Loss and Absence is even more relevant these days since so many of us have been challenged by it in the last year.

How we approach the project

The outcome of this project will be a series of compositions (which they plan on working on the first one during this residency) that will be played by both artists, performed with acoustic and electronic instruments. As mentioned before, these compositions will be based on international melodies and the way both artists understand and channelize them with their instruments and production and compositional abilities. But, before Aftab and Rouzbeh go deeper into the project and involve a multitude of cultures’ melodies and chants, they decided to use their own culture’s mourning and funeral chants and songs. Plus, being fueled by their personal experience toward the concept of Loss and Absence, they are working on an improvised piece on Piano and Clarinet, plus live electronics. They believe by doing so, they have a clearer sonic idea about the way this project goes forward.