The Silent City Premieres at Harvard

Students in Harvard Professor Thomas Forrest Kelly’s “First Nights” class enjoy the rare opportunity to participate in the creation of new music. Last fall Kelly’s students also experienced a new cultural perspective, collaborating with composer Kayhan Kalhor on a Persian-themed piece, The Silent City.

The collaboration was part of the Silk Road Project’s fall residency at Harvard. Kalhor, a kamancheh player with the Silk Road Ensemble, shared his ideas with Kelly’s students and began composing with them during a weeklong stay at Harvard in September. Kalhor and the Ensemble continued work on the piece throughout the semester, returning to visit the students again in December for the dress rehearsal and world premiere.

“You always have bits of a piece, themes, and phrases in your head,” noted Kalhor, speaking of the writing process. “But it’s a rare experience as a composer when you can share these ideas with the musicians who will be playing your work and the audience that will be hearing it.”

Viola player Nick Cords found the process valuable.
 
“The piece came together as a collaborative effort,” Cords said. “It’s a very different experience to work with the composer, rather than just getting a piece and performing. This truly helped us to internalize the music.”

Kalhor’s composition was inspired by a Kurdish village that had been destroyed – and the notion that the people and the place could still exist somewhere. He dedicated The Silent City to all the cities throughout history “destroyed by humanity, war, natural disaster.”

“Life continues, people move to new cities, a new city is created on top of the old. Everything starts again,” he said.

Written for two violins, viola, cello, and kamancheh, The Silent City features a Kurdish “dervish” melody, an Iranian funeral march, and sections of carefully timed improvisation.

“Kayhan’s music does not use the Western tuning system,” noted Yo-Yo Ma. “The Persian tuning is essential. It gives resonance for the specific regional culture of the central melody. It is physically and mentally taxing to achieve a comfort level with an unfamiliar system. But fortunately, we have a guide in Kayhan to take us to this place.”

Kelly was happy to see his students take the journey. He typically introduces his students to Western music through composers such as Beethoven and Handel, and encourages them to explore the cultural climate that contributes to the creation of the pieces they study.

The premiere performance mesmerized his students, according to Kelly. “What an honor it is for us to be part of such a creation.”

Kelly is Harvard’s Morton B. Knafel Professor of Music.

The Silent City by Kayhan Kalhor, arranged by Kayhan Kalhor and Ljova

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