"Immigrant Voices" by Haven Quartet & Setar Player Mirzaee

Tue., Dec 04

On Tues., Dec. 4 at 7 p.m., the Haven String Quartet (left) will present "Immigrant Voices: The Arab World," a performance that will include a piece written by Music Professor Mark Kuss (below, left) in which the quartet is accompanied by Southern student Mani Mirzaee (below, right). The concert will take place in the Charles Garner Recital Hall (Engleman C112). 

The Haven Quartet, of New Haven's Music Haven, is in its second year of residency at Southern and is comprised of Tina Hadari, violin 1; Yaira Matyakubova, violin 2; Colin Benn, viola; and Matt Beckmann,  cello. In the Dec. 4 performance, Mani Mirzaee will play setar, an instrument similar to the sitar. Kuss wrote Elegy for String Quartet and recorded sound specifically for this collaboration between the quartet and Mirzaee.

Kuss says of the piece, "An elegy is a musical remembrance of a person, usually someone recently past.  This one is too, but it is also a musical moment of engaging the unfamiliar--one way of seeing the world passes, another enters."

He says that the challenge of writing a piece for the quartet and setar was that a string quartet is a Western concept, part of the Western classical music tradition, whereas the setar, a Persian instrument, comes from a very different tradition.   

Mirzaee was born in Iran, and has lived in the United States most of his life, but travels back and forth between the two countries and maintains strong cultural roots. Kuss says that the musical style in which he plays involves a completely different way of understanding and projecting musical ideas and psychologies than what we are used to in traditional "western" and popular culture. 

"Mani is in my classes and I've been taken by his willingness to engage in strong dialog and discussion about music," Kuss says.  "I heard him play the Setar last year and was quite moved by the intimacy of the music and by the sounds of his instrument."

The Haven Quartet residency at Southern is sponsored by the Stutzman Family Foundation. Kuss talked with the members of the quartet over the summer about writing a new piece for them, and the idea of "the immigrant experience" was raised as an focal point for one of the concerts in the series. Kuss spoke to the group about Mirzaee and they liked the idea of a collaboration. 

"I have been working with Mani on the 'argument' of the piece -- what its meaning might be -- since September," says Kuss. "It has been an interesting and compelling collaboration."

In addition to Kuss' piece, the quartet will also perform works by composers Reza Vali, Aleksandra Vrebalov, and Mohammed Fairouz. Admission is $20 general public; $10 students and seniors; $5 SCSU community.

The concert is funded by a generous grant from the Stutzman Family Foundation.

Learn more about Music Haven and the Haven String Quartet at musichavenct.org/