Aftab Darvishi is a Tehran based musician and composer. She has released a new album called A Thousand Butterflies. According to the press release, A portrait album that looks back on Darvishi’s 11-year journey as a composer, A Thousand Butterflies evokes a life that has crossed continents. It spans a range of styles and includes work for a variety of instrumental forces as well as electronics.
“When I compose, I don’t think about style,” Darvishi says. “It’s not that logical, it’s not with a lot of calculation. It’s more by instinct. “My music is not only Persian music – it’s bigger than that. It’s an approach to being.” The album begins with Sahar (Dawn), the most recent work of Darvishi’s on the album. It is named after a mode from the Kermanshah region that is traditionally played at dawn to wake people up, and is written for a cello using traditional Persian techniques. This piece will be released as the album’s lead single.
After Hidden Dream, a piece for saxophone quartet that was recorded live at a concert in Stockholm, comes the title track, A Thousand Butterflies. For clarinet and piano, the piece is inspired by experiences of immigration. Each of its three movements looks at immigration from a different perspective, charting the diversity of the immigrant experience and the range of emotions that immigrants feel.
Forgetfulness is the earliest composition on the album and was recorded in Tehran. The album’s final track is Pluton, an atmospheric, 15-minute work for four instruments and electronics.