Red Cedar Chamber Music’s directors and core ensemble, violinist Miera Kim and cellist Carey Bostian, will be joined by clarinetist Jean-François Charles and setar player Ramin Roshandel to present Global Consortium, a program featuring two brand-new compositions.
Each guest artist has been commissioned by Red Cedar to create a new work for this program. Roshandel has composed Coping Mechanisms, a multi-movement work that is an homage to the great Persian musical tradition that he grew up in and explores the relationship between good and evil. Yalda is the Persian name for the winter solstice, or the longest night of the year. In Persian culture, Yalda is when light (good) overcomes dark (evil).
Charles has composed The Blues and the Material Truth, a suite of five blues, each inspired by a different aspect of his life and compositional experiences.
Charles says: “Initiation Blues is about coming of age. Nigritella nigra celebrates the alpine flower found near my childhood mountain village. Quasimodo Blues touches on the topics of exclusion, love and survival: it is an echo of my work on the soundtrack to the 1923 movie ‘The Hunchback of Notre Dame.’ Plantation Earth is an homage to Rahsaan Roland Kirk, an incredible artist whose each breath was about music. Finally, Candide Blues is an homage to Grant Wood, who, after his European travels, decided that Iowa was the best place to develop his personal style. The music fits in the tradition of the Third Stream, mixing classical and jazz traditions. Here, these two strands meet in a chamber music ensemble, with the added dimension of the setar and improvisation in the Persian classical music tradition.”
Roshandel and Charles have developed a unique sound combining the traditions of Persian classical music and live electronic music. They have been creating this new shared musical language since their first concert in December 2019. They have been invited to perform in Chicago, Iowa City, Ames, Omaha, New York City, Warrensburg, and Tucson. Their debut album, Jamshid Jam (2022), is available on streaming platforms and CD.
For Red Cedar, Global Consortium is special because, like our spring 2025 program Crossover Quartet, we are featuring two composers as guest artists that regularly play chamber music together. What a treat to build comradery through exploring your chamber music partner’s newly composed music.
We have already performed Global Consortium six times in the last week at sites around eastern Iowa, but several performances remain, including free concerts at 1 p.m. on Oct. 8 at Parkview Church in Iowa City; 7 p.m. on Oct. 10 at Center Point Library in Center Point; and 3 p.m. on Oct. 19 at Voxman Recital Hall in Iowa City.
A special event is our yearly concert on Oct. 11 in Ainsworth. A $25 ticket gets you a Persian meal at 6 p.m. and the concert at 7 p.m. Call for reservations at 319-653-6250.
We are collaborating with Arts Iowa for the first time in a performance at 7:30 p.m. on Oct. 17 at the Opus Concert Café in Cedar Rapids. Tickets are available at artsiowa.com.
I am beyond excited to get to perform these two new works with Ramin and Jean-François. Don’t miss the stories they have to tell.
Carey Bostian is a music columnist for the Iowa City Press-Citizen and is a director of Red Cedar Chamber Music.
This article originally appeared on Iowa City Press-Citizen: ‘Global Consortium’ will feature two new compositions | Music Column
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