Sohrab Kashani

Hello Mohammad! 

Mohammad Reza Mortazavi

Hello!

Sohrab Kashani

Thank you very much for your time! First of all, I wanted to tell you how much I liked your work. And as someone who enjoys music but doesn’t practice it, I’ve followed your work. My own practice as an artist is quite different from yours. I work mainly with visual arts, but by reading and watching your interviews and from what I’ve seen so far, I find your ideas very interesting and very similar to those of my own. This for me was very interesting and I wanted to talk to you and hear more. Now, if you would, I would love to hear more about your overall attitude. Your overall attitude towards music, art, and life itself. How do you see yourself as a vehicle for all these. I don’t want to talk too much. I’d like to hear you speak. We can take it from there.

Mohammad Reza Mortazavi

Of course. Anyway, I’m also happy we are able to speak as it’s been so long since I’ve had a conversation like this in Farsi language, although, I’ve reached this conclusion that the music language is the most complete language in the world as it is universal and doesn’t know any boundaries. And I’m very happy to be speaking in Farsi right now. What always inspired me the most, was this love for music. Well, I started playing music when I was very little. And while learning the musical traditions and the other things I was learning at that time, I would try to practice. And I realized that practicing was too difficult for me and there needed to be some form of pressure to make me sit down and practice. When I was by myself and in my own room and I played music, I would enjoy playing the instruments and I would forget that it’s practice and that there are certain rules in the class that I was attending at the time, a class by Hossein Poor Abootaleb who will always be my teacher because of his love for his students. It has always remained in my memory how he loved us and because of this, when I was in my own zone things would happen that were out of my control. Well, I have been playing music for almost 35 years. 

Little by little I felt that it was the music that was pulling me towards itself. And one of the progresses I made in terms of my practice and my performance and by that, I mean music has always been and still is my main teacher and I am constantly learning. Every performance and concert I have, wherever it might be. I learn new things every day! And the music and my life are one. It’s not like when I am performing on stage I’m someone else. It’s something I tried very hard to be important to me in my life. Although it’s not very easy to do that in this day and era living anywhere in the world has its own dynamics.

Sohrab Kashani

I read about some of these thoughts and feelings that you have for music, your feelings when you play which you talked about. Now that you’ve mentioned the past, I’d like to ask you about your early inspirations. The place we are brought up in and the conditions under which we are brought up inspire our practices. How these, in your case specifically Iran, has influenced and inspired your work? Whether this was the place itself and the conditions or the people you were in contact with, in regards to your musical practice, or friends and relatives, or other things that inspired you...Things such as literature, poetry, music, art, etc. that might have influenced how you perceive the world and specifically your language in music. It would be very interesting if you can talk about these early inspirations.

Mohammad Reza Mortazavi

Of Isfahan and Iran?

Sohrab Kashani

Yes.

Mohammad Reza Mortazavi

You mean from when I started. There was the book of Maestro Hossein Esfahani. I played an alternative way of playing the Tonbak and I felt that when I am in my own zone and play things that don’t happen in the classroom that overwhelmed me in such a way that I could not stop myself from playing them. As I grew older, I had achievements in school and in music festivals, but at the same time, there wasn’t any room for my work to be acknowledged for what it was. I felt alone in Isfahan and even when I moved to Tehran, Maestro Mirzadeh invited me there, Soheil Eivani may God rest his soul, And Maestro Kasaei and Maestro Jalil Shahnaz in Isfahan...Their love for music inspired me so much and they both supported me in the path that I had chosen. They both would say you are yourself and, this, what you do is beautiful and continue with what you’re doing and we would sit together and play together with love whether in Isfahan or in Tehran. 

And well, for me at that time, that place, that garden, that breeze that was blowing by Maestro Kasaei for me is like a dream now that I think about it, it's like another reality.

And how could that be possible? And well it was like I reached this conclusion that the person who does artistic work and learns that tradition and as a matter of fact enjoys that tradition, when that joy intensifies and the person dissolves in that joy. That person transforms changes meaning one of the signs, it can be said like this, that a work that is dissolved in a person, it transforms that person and they can no longer remain the same. And for this reason, those that practice the pieces note by note, unfortunately it no longer has that feeling. Interestingly they also talk about feeling, the feeling and the technique are the same. No one can ever say that they are separate from one another. Quantum physics proposes the same thing: the body and the soul. I am both the body and the soul, and so are you! And it’s not like my soul is somewhere else and my body is here right now. And technique and feeling are one, using the technique that feeling is manifested. If a person likes a musician’s technique they will have a good feeling, think it’s beautiful and if they don’t they won’t also have that connection. Anyway, what I learned is that music is love and love knows no boundaries. No one can tell me to love in a certain way and I also can’t tell anyone how to love.

Yes, that’s very interesting and is exactly what I wanted to talk to you about. When you became aware of this... reached this realization. It was perhaps when you immigrated to Germany, at that time. I’d like to know more about this. How much your immigration was influenced by this? And how much it helped? Were you faced with the same challenges, this “tradition” and repetition.

Mohammad Reza Mortazavi

Yes, well. I, like many others who perhaps are now living in Iran and have not lived somewhere else, or never been to any other countries, thought that here the artist is supported, the talent is supported and I realized no! That’s not the case. Well, in Iran I had already received awards and titles in different festivals and although music for me is not about competition, but at that time and in that age, I had this idea that I needed more achievements. Anyway I came here and I found out that here they don’t even know the instruments and that percussion solo is not alike. I thought it can’t be done in Iran like that but I realized it’s even harder here. I realized even here, despite it being more difficult and it is difficult everywhere in the world, but that love for music and that faith I had in my work was magic, it chopped stones and anyhow it brought about many possibilities. I have always said that if I lived in Iran it would have been a lot easier to create possibilities and live my lifeAnyway it was good and it helped me a lot because when there is more difficulty, when there are more boundaries, is also more motivation to become free of them. Many people, especially in Iran, thought I succeeded here because I was not in Iran, but as a matter of fact, I was also in Iran until I was almost 20 years old, and I liked there to be more possibilities there. But that was not the case and those motivations and even those disagreements that fellow musicians in Iran had with me: Why are you being creative? This is no longer Tombak. This should not be done...All those became inspirations for me and motivated me and if we are optimists we can use everything to our advantage, for our goals.

Sohrab Kashani

Another thing that is interesting for me.

Let’s go back in time again, about your audience, those who listen to your work, come to your performances and concerts. How does that work for you? How does that become an exchange in your opinion? And the energy that is shared with the audiences, as you have once said. How does it work and how does that influence your performance? I am also interested to know if you see a difference between the audience for your work in other parts of the world, in Iran, in Germany and elsewhere.

Mohammad Reza Mortazavi

Well. That beauty that amazes us, like going underwater and seeing what it is like down there...What a world! The colors! There is sometimes fear and there is also beauty. It’s all part of nature and music is nature. It has no connection to a certain nation. Like I would say I try to be a human, and it is no longer important that I was born in Brazil, Iran, or Afghanistan. Wherever I was born I try to be a human and well this perception helped me a lot to see music.

As a matter of fact, the performances I have now, last few years. I had very few performances in Germany. Many of my performances were requested by event organizers from other parts of the world. Because that idea that philosophy that exists behind that music has reached people, and this is very valuable to me that all these years and all those difficulties. They can write books about all those difficulties! Things that happened to me, it gives me a wonderful feeling and motivates me to continue. To answer your earlier question, I’ve reached this conclusion that this amazement, this out of body experience, I can no longer just play. I’ve realized that I no longer have control over my hands. I can’t say that I planned and decided that my music is going to be like this. That’s wrong, unfortunately, not just in Iran but everywhere else too, that is the standard. The fact that the show was created and stage and show. In English we say show. And music is not a show, it is not an exhibition, music is sound and this is what music taught me. And I try to be a vehicle for the sound to play through me rather than I play it. If I play now in my own room other things happen. Even if I play to you right now through the internet other things happen and the same goes for live performances with a live audience, whoever is in that room, different energies that are present in that place, in that time. If we are open to that moment and if we are amazed by that moment, then things happen. That it will be possible that the music is played through us, and well this perhaps has always existed, and perhaps I was not aware of it from the very beginning. But I became more conscious of it and even though I am on the stage, and that I do not believe in the stage. But through music, I like to get rid of that line and the boundary between the stage and the audience.

Like in my concerts, I don’t like the lighting to be in such a way that it focuses on me. I like the lighting to focus on everyone, a room or a venue that seats thousands of people, we are all there together and this music, I never feel like I am solo playing. And I have always said this. I always feel like we are all performing together. It is never solo playing for me and it is a group collaboration. It is so much better that a group performance is put on stage rather than it focuses on one person’s specific idea. And this is what I try to do.

Sohrab Kashani

You have in a way answered this...Especially in the beginning when you said you think of music as the most complete language. It is interesting for me that you don’t set any boundaries and you perceive what happens as a flow of energy that is shared by all of us and it’s not necessarily important what vehicle it uses. I would like to ask you about some of your more recent collaborations with other artists, such as Acci Baba or Burnt Friedman. How did these collaborations come about? Do you have any other collaborations planned in the near future? And, do you see your practice extended into other formats in the future, perhaps mixed with other artistic mediums?

Mohammad Reza Mortazavi

Yes, of course. There is always solo work, it has its audience and that will continue. And at the same time, other artists whose ideas are similar to my own. Because if the ideas are able to connect to one another, there will be harmony and coordination. Some people make these decisions based on the rational idea of what is best for their careers. And it’s more about the business. I’ve always liked to be free and open to artists whom we enjoy and understand each other 

and that everyone has freedom in what they do in their work. It’s very interesting and why not? Apart from my colleagues Acci and Burnt, there are instances... like the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra...They wanted to collaborate with me and I did that. Or the Germany Philharmonic Orchestra that we still collaborate together. For example this October I will be working with the Rundfunkchor Berlin. They are using some of my pieces with the choir. There are these sorts of collaborations and they are wonderful. To be this expectation that my instrument is Tombak and that every melodic musician expects to work with me this easily, this was the case before but it no longer is that easy. So that there will be that harmony and coordination.

Sohrab Kashani

Thank you for sharing that Mohammad.

Mohammad Reza Mortazavi

My pleasure.

I hope we meet in person soon, in Tehran or on your next visit to Germany.

Thank you! Have a good day.

Sohrab Kashani

Thank you! You too.