GRAMMY award-winner (and five-time nominee) Kayhan Kalhor is an internationally acclaimed virtuoso on the kamancheh, (‘little bow’), a bowed string instrument with a thousand-year history. In this special Kings Place show, Kayhan will perform alongside Tombak player Kaveh Mahmudiyan.

Through his many musical collaborations, Kalhor was instrumental in popularizing Persian music in the West and is a creative force in today’s music scene. His performances of traditional Persian music and multiple collaborations have attracted audiences around the globe. He has studied the music of Iran’s many regions, in particular those of Khorason and Kordestan, and has toured the world as a soloist with various ensembles and orchestras including the New York Philharmonic and the Orchestre National de Lyon.

He is co-founder of the renowned ensembles Dastan, Ghazal: Persian & Indian Improvisations and Masters of Persian Music. Kayhan Kalhor has composed works for Iran’s most renowned vocalists Mohammad Reza Shajarian and Shahram Nazeri and has also performed and recorded with Iran’s greatest instrumentalists. He has composed music for television and film and was most recently featured on the soundtrack of Francis Ford Copolla’s Youth Without Youth in a score that he collaborated on with Osvaldo Golijov. In 2004, Kayhan was invited by American composer John Adams to give a solo recital at Carnegie Hall as part of his Perspectives Series and in the same year he appeared on a double bill at Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival, sharing the program with the Festival Orchestra performing the Mozart Requiem. Kayhan is a member of the Silkroad Ensemble (founded by Yo-Yo Ma) and his compositions appear on several of the Ensemble’s albums

“You can get lost in this music in a wonderful way. It roams through ­far-flung provenances and ages…­mystically tinted, mysterious sounds, which echo in the ­inclined listener for a long time.”
Jazz Thing