88 Strings performs "Fosün" by Iranian-Canadian composer Farshid Samandari

From our recent performance at the Sound of Dragon Festival

We are pleased to share with our followers a video from our April 4 concert as part of the Sound of Dragon Festival in Vancouver, Canada.

Farshid Samandari first wrote Fosün around 2012 and has arranged it especially for our quartet. We thing it sounds great!

Farshid Samandari was born in Iran in 1971 into a Bahà’i family. This meant that he was not allowed to pursue academic studies in a university, was not allowed to leave the country as other citizens, and in general was deprived of basic human rights. He witnessed the imprisonment, tribulation, and martyrdom of many friends and scholars. It took him about nine years to legally obtain a passport to leave his homeland. Notwithstanding these conditions he pursued his music studies, eventually teaching, and founding a choir. In April 2001 he arrived in Canada where he continued his studies in composition and electroacoustics at the University of BC. His music reflects his interest in contemporary classical vocabulary, spectral analysis, and extended techniques. In addition his profound faith in unity in diversity has stirred him to utilize elements from a variety of non-western musical traditions, and integrate different cultural music and vocabularies in his compositions.

If you’d like us to commission more great music, you can help us by contributing to our campaign to commission Montreal composer Michael Oesterle to write for us.

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John Oliver for 88 Strings