Music / The Alchemy of Ancient Song Roads – Jazmourian Ensemble. At Ainslie Arts Centre, October 13. Reviewed by GRAHAM McDONALD.

The Jazmourian Ensemble is an Australian/Iranian duo consisting of Anna McDonald and Malek Mohammadi Nejad.

Their music is written by the duo based in classical Iranian forms, using Iranian instruments, but with the influences of western classical music overlaying that.

Originally a baroque violinist, McDonald plays a kamancheh, a bowed stringed instrument from Iran and surrounding regions. Tuned like a violin, it is played while kneeling with the instrument held vertically, supported by a spike. The bow, which is tensioned by the right-hand fingers while played, is held horizontally and the kamancheh rotated on the spike for the bow to touch the outside strings.

Nejad plays a setar, a long-necked lute of similar origins to the Greek bouzouki and one of many similar instruments known from the eastern Mediterranean to the Indian subcontinent. It is played by picking or strumming the four strings with a fingertip. Iranian music divides the octave into 17 or more notes (compared to 12 in a western scale) and uses these in quite different scales than our European ears are used to.

What makes this music especially fascinating is that the combination of these two very fine musicians from two quite different cultural backgrounds creates music in which the Iranian roots are still very much in evidence. At the same time there is another element, perhaps McDonald’s western classical music background, which adds different flavours to it.

The structures of the six compositions presented at the concert were quite similar, in that they started with a melodic or modal theme on the setar. The kamancheh would take up the theme, and embellish it with variations as the two instruments exchanged musical ideas as the piece progressed. It would be interesting to know how much of this is prepared as part of the composition process and how much might be improvised in the performance.

This was a most impressive first performance by this ensemble. It is exotic at one level, yet readily accessible with musicianship of a very high level. We can only look forward to seeing where they can take the music from here.

Ensemble debut explores cultural intersections