Bach in Shiraz - University House

Jazmourian Ensemble - Ensemble-in-Residence at the ANU School of Music - performs

"Bach in Shiraz"

Malek Mohammadi Nejad - Iranian setar

Dr Anna McDonald - violin

In this new concert project by the Jazmourian Ensemble, JS Bach's hauntingly beautiful Partita for solo violin in D minor is interspersed with improvisations and compositions by Malek Mohammadi Nejad and Anna McDonald in Iranian musical language

This is a concert that brings Western classical music and Iranian music into an imaginative and creative dialogue, and is conceived as a musical response to the Chaconne and other movements of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Partita No. 2 for solo violin. In this project, Bach’s music is not simply a subject for adaptation or reinterpretation; rather, it becomes the starting point for a musical response—one that emerges from the traditions, aesthetics, and sonic world of Iranian music.

The project also raises a historical question: If a direct and meaningful musical dialogue had existed between musicians in Europe and Iran during Bach’s lifetime, what might that dialogue have sounded like? Bach was composing within the European Baroque tradition, while Iran was also experiencing rich musical, literary, and philosophical traditions. Bach in Shiraz imagines this encounter that never historically took place—not as a reconstruction of the past, but as the creation of an alternative musical narrative of what might have been possible.

In this narrative, Shiraz is not merely a geographical location; it becomes a symbolic and imaginative space in which Bach’s music is heard and answered. “Bach in Shiraz” therefore becomes an intercultural musical experience: neither a transformation of Iranian music into Western classical music, nor a transformation of Bach into Iranian music, but the creation of a third space in which the two traditions can retain their distinct identities while listening to one another, responding to one another, and ultimately creating something new together.