Safar CD Release Concert - Moody Amiri

Safar, the debut release by Richard Moody (Canada) and Amir Amiri (Iran), was recorded on Vancouver Island with renowned UK/Victoria producer Joby Baker (Cowboy Junkies, May Moore, Alex Cuba) and took over two years to complete. Says Moody: “We felt we were developing a sound, an approach, and an instrumentation that had not been heard before, so we wanted to be sure it was well thought out.”

Tracks include originals such as Rainfall and Khurshid that might not be out of place in a yoga studio.Procession and Ragsheh Choobi draw more from the Persian classical tradition and showcase the intricate and incredibly virtuosic hammer-work of Amiri. The album concludes with an interpretation ofRavel’s Bolero that should please and surprise the most skeptical Western classical listener and perhaps leave a perplexed look on the faces of Amiri’s teachers and colleagues back in Iran. The album was nominated for a Western Canadian Music Award (WCMA) for “Best World Music Recording”.

Amir Amiri is a founding member of “The Teheran Project”, which successfully toured in North America in the 2000′s. A refugee from Iran, he was subjected to corporal punishment by the clergy in his homeland, simply for composing and performing music that was, in their view, sacrilegious and “outside the box”. He was eventually able to immigrate to Canada in 1995, and took up residence at the Banff Centre for the Arts for the better part of 5 years, where he performed and collaborated with such masters as John Stetch, Edgar Meyer, and Philip Glass. He would later study with Ravi Shankar in India and with Jose Fernades Torres (aka Tomatito) in Spain.

Richard Moody has been a fixture on the Canadian roots scene for over two decades, performing with The Wailin Jennys, The Bills, Acoustically Inclined, The Wyrd Sisters, Glenn Buhr, Jane Siberry and Oliver Swain, among others. In frequent trips to India over 10 years from 2003 to 2013, he developed a love for Eastern Music, and began searching for a project in which he could experiment with Eastern styles via his own instrument, the viola. This collaboration has been a long time in coming, and is sure to intrigue both world music and classical listeners alike.