The Music of Strangers Page #3

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But you could not expect

that someone from Africa

or China picks up on the...

on the subtleties of a culture

that is not their own.

A lot of people thought that...

what we were doing was not pure.

It's, uh... What is it called?

Cultural tourism.

Let's go. Yeah.

Beautiful.

This is basic rhythm.

I mean, just not the accent.

Try... dut-dut, ba-ba-ba-ba.

Ba-ba-ba-ba, ba-ba-ba...

Kayhan, he's such a

well-known figure in Iran,

and he was here at

the very beginning.

That's fantastic. Ah.

So the nail going back

and forth, right?

Yeah. Right, left, two rights.

Does it...

Oh.

Yeah.

My intention is to

represent my culture

and the contribution

that this very old culture

made to human life.

If you go back, you know, in the

beginning of the 20th century,

every Eastern culture was

so fascinated with West...

you know, the technology, cars,

and music, of course.

My instrument, kamancheh,

it was not being taught.

And I was really lucky, because I got

to professional music very early,

so I had the chance to work

with the older generation.

Kayhan, he brings you

closer to the horse

or to the cow or to

the... to the source,

you know, that you forget.

But Kayhan has had a

very tragic life.

The revolution.

Chaos.

You realize that your life's not

going to be the same anymore.

I was 17...

my parents decided

that I had to leave.

I just walked... walked,

you know, out...

out of the country like that.

I... I worked little by little

in every country,

kind of farm work.

Turkey for nine months, and then

Romania, Yugoslavia, Italy.

Yeah, I had a little backpack...

and, um... I had a kamancheh.

That was it. Yeah.

When I left...

meeting a lot of different

world musicians...

that was very attractive to me.

I always wanted to do something

outside of my culture.

I think that was a...

a very important turning

point in my career.

How's it going, Kayhan?

Uh, fine. We definitely

need more rehearsal time.

But... um, they're

very good musicians,

and they're much

better than yesterday,

so... there is hope.

The Tanglewood workshop

was fantastic,

because we don't speak

necessarily perfect English

or perfect Chinese

or perfect Persian,

but we speak perfect

music language.

Some projects, you know,

at the end of it,

that's wonderful.

It was a great thing,

but it's done.

This one... is different.

You make a connection.

You make a cultural connection.

You make a connection

to another human being.

That's very precious.

We were faced with the decision,

"Should we go on or is this it?"

And we were very careful

to try to not just say

we should go on because

we would like it to.

Bye!

What's the reason for going on?

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