Impromptus for Piano and Electronics
(last edited: 2021)
author(s): Saman Samadi
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
This exposition represents a collection of Saman Samadi's impromptus for piano and electronics, which are short pieces of structured improvisations on the piano, of which manipulated by electronic music techniques were used as parts of the accompaniment layers. The video recordings of the piano improvisations were problematized along with the assemblage of the sounds, edited and remoulded, by special effects, to accompany the music in the guise of video art.
The Saman Samadi Quintet
(last edited: 2021)
author(s): Saman Samadi
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
This is a representation of the projects of The Saman Samadi Quintet in the years 2018 and 2019.
The Saman Samadi Quintet: Amber Evans, soprano, Caitlin Cawley, percussion, Martin Movagh, trumpet, Sam Zagnit, double bass, and Saman Samadi, piano. It was founded by composer Saman Samadi, an Iranian national with extensive training in both Persian and Western musical traditions. Established in May 2018 and comprised entirely of New York City musicians, alumni from the Manhattan School of Music — all talented performers of wide scope and experience —their sound was unique, paving new ground between modern jazz and contemporary classical styles. Their signature sounds evoked the newest avant-garde outliers of advanced 21st-century compositional work, and embodied an early 20th-century songspiel-like lyricism, channelling the rational integrity of Stockhausen, the polyrhythmic world of Reich, the aberrant sounds of Sciarrino, coupled with the expressive freedom of Don Cherry, all the while making a fait accompli of intricate poeticisms a la Rumi or Hafez. Reflecting upon a variety of past musical conventions, sometimes shifting cultural gears, from East to West — using microtones derived from one of the Persian scalar systems — Samadi, had engineered a bit of his own culture into the gambit of what amounts to an international musical collaboration. Amber Evans, the vocalist is an Australian, and Martin Movagh, on trumpet, was brought up in a mixed mid-eastern household, Caitlin Cawley is half-Celtic, and Sam Zagnit is Eastern European in descent — that made this ensemble, 100% fluent in universal musical communication and totally American! Improvisational acumen was both the achievement and goal of this group; if you let them loose, you might never get the genie back into the bottle.
Apām Napāt Trio
(last edited: 2020)
author(s): Saman Samadi
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
Apām Napāt (آپام نپات) is a trio by Persian pianist, violinist, and vocalist Saman Samadi, clarinetist and saxophonist Blaise Siwula, and Buchla-player Hans Tammen. The ensemble presents improvisational compositions that draw connections between their musical backgrounds. Using Persian modes and poems as well as a structured and recognizable yet free impulsive interaction between the instruments, they set parallel narratives in motion, occasionally intersecting but always accompanying one another. The trio released an album called "Apām Napāt" consisting of the recordings of their first performance, in 2016.