The Sound of Music

Last week I had the pleasure of receiving an invitation to visit my friend and Polish language classmate Mohammed in a musical performance with the Polish Philharmonic Orchestra in Lodz. He plays a Persian style flute called a ‘ney’, which he was classically trained with while growing up in his native country Iran. Mohammed is a very passionate and rather casual person socially, which can coincidentally be a way to describe the way he plays his instrument.

The ‘ney’ has a very soft bird-song like sound that is very unique compared to most dominating western style instruments. Despite the political struggles going on in Iran, Mohammed carries on with his music in Poland, whilst sharing something more important than political opinions. If only we could all make our ears only hear the sound of music and drown out the rhetoric of political ideology. If you are interested, he will perform with his wife Anna ( who is Polish,) as well as a percussionist, and also with his Iranian friend Mossen who plays an Iranian stringed instrument called a tar (and quite quickly to boot,) next month on the square in Warsaw. So if you are in town you should feel obliged to meander down for a listen.

Please see the video, which is too short to do any justice to the performance. As I didn’t want to offend anyone in the captivated audience, I only filmed a tiny piece of the evening. Please note the final piece by the orchestra is for all of you in Korea.