Kayhan Kalhor and Erdal Erzincan: Persian kamancheh and Anatolian lute at Stary Klasztor

Kayhan Kalhor and Erdal Erzincan are two masters of Eastern classical music drawing on the richness of Eastern Anatolia, a land inhabited by Kurds.

The concert takes place in the beautiful, mysterious Gothic Hall at Stary Klasztor, inaugurating the new “Muzyka Świata w Starym Klasztorze” series as part of Ethno Jazz Festival.

Iranian-born Kayhan Kalhor is one of the world’s most acclaimed virtuosos of the kamancheh, the classical Persian knee fiddle, as well as a multi-instrumentalist, composer and teacher. He was born in 1963 into a Kurdish family settled in Tehran. He began studying music at seven and continued under distinguished masters. He undertook numerous field expeditions to explore the folk music of Iran’s various provinces and studied Western classical music at academies in Ottawa and Rome. His achievements include dozens of projects and albums with artists such as Yo-Yo Ma, Mohammad Reza Shajarian, Swapan Chaudhuri, Maya Beiser, Shujaat Khan, the Kronos Quartet and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. He has been nominated for Grammy Awards three times. He has lived in the USA for more than a decade.

Turkey’s Erdal Erzincan, meanwhile, is a singer, composer and teacher, and a master of the bağlama, or saz, the traditional Middle Eastern long-necked lute. Born in 1971 in Erzurum, Eastern Anatolia, he began studying classical Kurdish and Turkish music in his hometown before continuing in Istanbul. He developed a tapping technique as an alternative to traditional plucking, producing sound by pressing the strings. He has recorded more than a dozen acclaimed albums with the Cologne Philharmonic Orchestra, Vienna Symphony Orchestra and outstanding musicians from his own country, including Arif Sağ, Erol Parlak and Yılmaz Çelik.

The two artists’ joint concerts are surprising spectacles of extended improvisation, forming a fascinating dialogue between two virtuosos.