Ashti
Concert at Reunion Cafe Belper hosted by Dormouse Bookshop for MAP with Seni, June 2024
Ashti have been playing together as a trio since September 2023
We share music from Farsi, Kurdish and Arabic traditions along with original English songs arranged together for santoor, keyboard, guitar and drum
Dlivan Salih is a Kurdish Iraqi singer-songwriter, music producer and multi- instrumentalist. He has written and performed his own music extensively in Iraq as well as writing and producing music for other artists
Mohammadrezareza Behjat is an Iranian santoor player with over 30 years experience of arranging and playing santoor in a wide variety of settings.
Carol Fieldhouse is singer-songwriter and music facilitator. As a solo artist she has released two studio albums of original songs featuring Boo Hewerdine, Neill MacColl, John McCusker and Chris Pepper.
Mohammadreza and Carol met at DRS five years ago and collaborated online during covid including an online performance for Wirksworth Festival Online 2020.
Mohammadreza remotely recorded a santoor track called Sulaymaniyah for Carol's second album, Continuum and played together for the album launch in Wirksworth Town Hall as part of Wirksworth Festival 2022.
Dlivan and Carol met at DRS two years ago and within 2 weeks performed together at Artcore during Refugee Week with DRS music group. We have all performed solo and in duos at Lockstock Music Festival in Wirksworth. We will play again at Lockstock on 7th September this year at 1pm as part of a weekend of music - Free entry!
A clip from our first of three concerts for Medical Aid for Palestinians with poet, Seni Seneviratne, Wirksworth. January, 2024
Overall we raised £1,000 for MAP at this event. It was followed by a similar event at Reunion Cafe pictured below and one more concert to come on the 2nd November at St Mary's, Wirksworth.
On Thursday 29th we will play at Cafe Palestina at Dubrek Studios, 67 Bridge Street, Derby DE1 3LB All welcome, we will play at 7.30pm FREE
Thursday 29th September
A short clip from Dubrek performance
Helwa Ya Baladi sung by Dlivan
A lovely event to be part of for Cafe Palestina at Dubrek. Dubrek is a great venue and has a range of events many of which are free and worth checking their website. https://dubrek.co.uk/
Our next performance we are preparing for is a 40 minute set on Saturday 7th, 1pm at Lockstock Music Festival, part of Wirksworth Festival. It's a delightful small festival tucked away in courtyard with great sound, a good bar and food I believe!
We rehearse weekly together and it is a joy: sharing music, culture and sometimes food. All having different languages means we go slowly and can take our time. It is very exciting to have a sense of other musical traditions and different ways of accompanying and harmonising together... and with time and practice musical trust grows and we can follow one another. This is great for me as it teaches me to be more free
Wednesday 4th September
A good final rehearsal before Lockstock today. We unpicked small details in the Dancer and On The Road and as is often the case the details were easy to iron out once they've had due care and attention.
Thursday 5th September
Sam Rushton has been in touch from Derby Theatre to ask us to play another Scratch Performance on October 31st before and after their show Sanctuary. This will include other members from DRS Music Group.
We are also looking forward to reconnecting with Derby College Lexis Faculty this Autumn and exploring new links with Nottingham Trent University. More of these later I hope.
Ashti at Wirksworth Artisan and Farmer's Market August 2024
Wednesday 4th September
Final rehearsal before Lockstock at Wirksworth Festival - a whole weekend of music with the great team at Musicwirks.
It is such a pleasure to feel so well rehearsed and ready for our 40 minute set. It was overcast and mizzly but according to the organisers we had the best audience of the weekend, so that's lovely!
We took in our stride the sudden electrical failure and largely due to the natural volume of the santoor and Dlivan's ability to play drum rather than keyboard we did a completely unplugged 20 minutes of our set! It was fine! I needed to sing out a bit more and play more strongly than I normally would! We had a great day enjoying the sights and sounds of the Festival.
Wednesday 11th September
Writing session with Dlivan in the Studio, Derby Theatre. We worked on a song I wrote recently called The Photograph - it was started at a songwriting workshop asking us to use a photo of our younger self and to write something to this younger self. Dlivan added a great drum rhythm to this very sparse song - I am excited for this song to progress. The piano picks out the melody of the Middle 8 as an accompaniment to the different melodic line of the verse.
We also worked on another idea to develop towards a second Journey song together. I wrote a first draft lyrics from a poem I wrote after reading and hearing about asylum seekers being asked to attend their regular registration appointments and some people being arrested and sent to Detention Centres. Again we played with different tempi and drum rhythms - I'm interested to see how this materialises. Initially I used a drum rhythm to speak the words over before finding a melody.
Wednesday 18th September
Rehearsal in St Anne's today to run through the songs for the Peace Concert at the Multi Faith Centre, Derby. Mohammadreza was unable to join us today but it was useful for us to top and tail the songs for Ashti and for DRS Music Group's performance at the same event.
Friday 20th September Peace Concert 2024 for Derby Peace Week
What a great night of joyful and poignant performances for Peace.
Here is an extract of Sulaymaniyah, a place in Kurdistan, N. Iraq. A song I wrote after many countries in the Middle East were blanketed in snow in March 2012. It is about what connects us all as people. The song was given new life with the beautiful interplay between keyboard and santoor.
New performances in the Autumn
31st October Scratch Performance at Derby Theatre - more info to come
2nd November St Mary's Wirksworth 3rd concert with poet Seni Seneviratne raising money for MAP
Friday 4th October, weekly rehearsal
We worked particularly on details of The Dancer, Birdsong and On The Road.
A good morning's work. Settling on the tempo for each piece and any special transitions. Listening and making space for each other.
Mohammadreza had been working on an unfinished song I sent to him, he was keen to develop a counter melody for santoor. Dlivan also improvised on keyboard and I think the song has promise! The song is called People. I began to write in response to a BBC programme with Dr. Alice Roberts called the Incredible Human Journey, 2009. It painted a vivid picture of the onward progress of humans across the Earth over millenia and the ongoing struggles many people face. It doesn't 'arrive' or conclude about the subject but hopefully says something about the perennial will to move on, to find a place to settle and thrive...and maybe something about a lost connection to the Earth in settling for the success of modern city life - work in progress!
What I am relishing is learning more about Middle Eastern traditions of how making music is approached: for example, Dlivan and Mohammadreza focus on finding their own melodic line beyond the vocal melody to both complement each other in a call and response way while bringing a new perspective on the song and its meaning. I find their melodies capture the spirit of the song in a fresh way and give it new life. It's very exciting!
My experience as a solo singer-songwriter, by necessity, has been self sufficient and more attached to convey meaning/harmony through the way the vocal line sits with the chords.
The other 'meeting place' is my attachment to knowing exactly what I'm doing as I both sing and play and Dlivan and Mohammadreza's freedom through improvisation and their deep knowledge of scales (Maqqams) to reinvent what path they take. The points of uncertainty are where new possibilities come!
A photo from Derby College, Lexis Faculty Graduation July 2024 where Ashti was invited to play. The extra friend is Motasim who came with us.
Our next Wirksworth Event - sadly this has been postponed until January.
This week we were due to play a Scratch performance at Derby Theatre preceding a theatre production of Sanctuary but this is postponed also, due to the cast having covid! Still, we rehearse each Wednesday and now have 9 songs in our repertoire with 2 or 3 songs on the way. We have just been asked to play at the Brampton Sessions in Chesterfield on 2nd April 2025 for a Love Music Hate Racism event. Here's a little extract of On the Road written by Dlivan and I. It is the first of set of songs we intend to write about journeys and family.
Thursday 14th November
Ashti took part in a celebration for the life of Janet Fuller at Derbyshire Refugee Advice Centre. A beautiful day in memory of a wonderful and inspirational person who was instrumental in improving the lives of many, many people including Mohammadreza and Dlivan.
We performed a Farsi song introduced to us by Mohammadreza called Jane Maryam. The song title means Lovely, Maryam and speaks to Maryam saying,
' You said you would return before the flowers bloomed, but already the flowers have bloomed and made their seed. Come to me, Maryam, let us got to the desert, let us gather the wheat shoulder to shoulder, together, as we always did.....'
At DRAC 14.11.24
We have a provisional date for a our third concert with poet, Seni Seneviratne, on
Friday, 24th January 2024, venue to be confirmed.
JANUARY 2025
Our next concert with poet Seni Seneviratne below is sold out on 24th Jan.
The Photograph - a song about hindsight and the passage of time for keyboard and Turkish drum.
The Gift - a song inspired by a video of a small child in a War Zone shared by Dlivan. I wrote the song after seeing this and Dlivan arranged the track.
We hope these will be ready to record before too long....
Looking further ahead, Dlivan and I will play at Derby Theatre prior to 2 two choral events on March 23rd while Mohammadreza is away. We plan to do a different
programme drawing on songs we wrote individually before we began our Ashti project in January 2024.
We will all play at the Brampton Session for their Love Music Hate Racism event on April 2nd and have been asked to play at Wirksworth Farmers Market again on the first Saturday in May - a lovely opportunity with great sound by Callum Jones.
Haarlem Gallery, Wirksworth 24/01/25
We have been invited to give a concert for Derby Peace Week in September and to take the concert with Seni to a Sheffield venue tbc.
Monday rehearsals continue... we are fine tuning The Gift in a new key and with guitar and santoor. This is a song I wrote in response to a short video Dlivan had shared of a small child in a war zone. Dlivan's piano arrangement and contrasting melody fits the song like a glove. We are excited to hear Mohammadrez'a santoor part when he returns.
We continue to prepare for the pre-performance set at Derby Theatre on March 23rd and are putting together some different songs for this event.
https://derbytheatre.co.uk/event/chorus-song-a-celebration-of-choirs/ - scroll down to find what we will do at this choir's event.
Here's the very first informal sharing at DRS Music Group of a song Dlivan and I wrote together called On the Road in English and with Arabic at the heart of the song.
We were invited to present this song as part of Departure Lounge, New Works Festival at Derby Theatre 2024.
'Mum don't cry, I will find a safe place to live
but how I miss the scent of my family and my country.'
Departure Lounge at Derby Theatre 2024
photo by Chris Webb
A small clip from a rehearsal session
Dlivan and Mohammadreza improv.
2025 Events to Date............
Sunday March 23rd derby Theatre
Friday March 28 derby Theatre Maison Foo
Wednesday April 2nd Brampton Sessions, Chesterfield, Love Music Hate Racism
Saturday May 3rd Wirksworth Farmer's and Artisan's Market
May 30 - Sheffield Venue TBC
May 31st Amnesty International Event at the Multi Faith Centre, Derby
Saturday June 14 derby Theatre Maison Foo
Saturday June 21 Refugee Week with DRS Music Group
Thursday September 18th - Artcore, Derby Peace Week TBC
Saturday 20th September - invitation to take part in a new event celebrating Music and Culture in Derby - more news to come.
Yesterday, Dlivan and I played at Derby Theatre before the matinee and evening performances of the Celebration of Choirs.
We will be back at the theatre with Maison Foo on friday, 28th March.
Maison Foo event at Derby theatre Friday 28th March
What a delight filled morning: beautiful food, open hearted people and young children enjoying being together and crafting things towards a display for their big Refugee Week event on June 14th. Songs from audience members, Kurdish dancing Sudanese coffee, Iranian fragrant tea and delicious food to celebrate Nowruz, New Year.
We will be playing again with Maison Foo on June 14th.
April 2nd Brampton Sessions, near Chesterfield.
It was wonderful to be part of an evening with other musicians raising awareness and to play for a receptive and attentive audience. Dlivan and I took part in this Love Music, hate Racism event. Mohammadreza returns this week and we look forward to all playing together again
A busy time since Sanctuary Cafe
Wednesday April 2nd
.
Brampton Sessions, Chesterfield, Love Music Hate Racism - a delightful evening with a great group of musicians for this important event.
Saturday May 3rd
Wirksworth Farmer's and Artisan's Market - great sound by Callum!
May 31st Amnesty International Event at the Multi Faith Centre, University of Derby.JPEG)
.JPEG)
Upcoming Events:
Saturday June 14 derby Theatre Maison Foo
Saturday June 21 Refugee Week with DRS Music Group
Friday 27th June Derby College, Lexis Faculty Graduation Ceremony
August Visit Connecting Through Arabic Weekend School, Nottingham
This month we said farewell to Mohammadreza who is about to start a new job in Canada. We wish him all the best in his new life there 💐
NOW Ashti Duo
Saturday 13th September Wirksworth Festival Stardisco at The Star Disc
Soundcheck in the sun!
Sunday MusicWirks at Wirksworth Festival
On The Road, by Dlivan and Carol written in 2024
Thursday September 18th - Artcore, Derby, Peace Week '25 with Seni Seneviratne
Saturday 20th September 3pm - invitation to take part in celebrating Music and Culture in Derby - Just a couple of Ashti songs as part of this event.
Saturday 11th October Derby Folk Festival 2pm Ballroom at the Old Bell
What a joy this event was. Special thanks to Bob Rushton and his team. A song I wrote called Better Together for the DRS Music Group and here the audience sang.
Tuesday 25th November event with poet Seni Seneviratne at Samuel Worth Chapel, in Sheffield, a Sheffield Palestine Cultural Exchange fundraiser for SPaCE
Comments
Post a Comment