This piece is scored for a small chamber ensemble, and it features Kayhan Kalhor, the composer, on the kamancheh (pronounced KAH mahn chey), a Persian spike fiddle. As Kalhor says about the piece: "I have dreamt of Neyshabur during the time of the Silk Road: the life, the cultures, the colors, and the smells. How a caravan reaching Neyshabur at dusk sees the city and hears the sounds as it is coming from far away."
Try an activity:
Ask students to think of a place they know particularly well. Ask them to imagine the sights, sounds, and smells of that place. (You may wish to have them write about the place they are thinking of as well.) Once their descriptions are vivid enough, ask them to imagine the same place a hundred years ago (or two hundred or five hundred, if you prefer). Ask them to try and be as specific as they can about the sights, sounds, and smells of that place. If students were to compose pieces of music using each scenario as inspiration, how would their two pieces differ? Ask students to be very specific about their use of musical elements usch as dynamics, tempo, and instrumentation. Why would the pieces differ in these ways?
