Gestaltung: Masoud Morgan · Foto: Arnaud Ele
Dear friends of the arts,
We are delighted to invite you to the Berlin world premiere of Dastgāh-e Chahārgāh on 9 October 2026. The work is the second chapter in Elshan Ghasimi’s cycle The Reinterpretation of the Radīf. We are very pleased to have TA T – Tieranatomisches Theater as both venue and project partner. Five further concerts will follow through 5 December.
In this multi-year project, composer and tar virtuoso Elshan Ghasimi is the first woman to reinterpret all twelve modal systems, the Dastgāhs and Avaz, of the Radīf. Each system becomes the basis for a self-contained contemporary work.
The Radīf – literally ‘row’ or ‘order’ – is the canon and musical memory of Persian music. More than 300 melodic models have been passed down mainly by ear across generations. Ghasimi approaches this heritage not as a fixed body of material, but as an ongoing interplay of memory and transformation. After Dastgāh-e Shur, which received its world premiere in the Bode-Museum’s basilica in 2022, she now turns to Dastgāh-e Chahārgāh.
In the historic lecture theatre, Carl Gotthard Langhans’s architecture meets the musical order of the Radīf. On the three Saturdays, the concerts will be followed by conversations on musical transmission, memory and translation. The guests are writer and translator Mahmoud Hosseini Zad, musicologist and Radīf expert Mona Mirkamali, and media and Middle Eastern studies scholar Nahid Siamdoust.
Elshan Ghasimi at the world premiere of the first chapter, Dastgāh-e Shur, in the Bode-Museum’s basilica, Berlin, 10 November 2022.
Watch the concert recording on YouTube
Photo: Stefan Haehnel
DATES
Friday, 9 October, 7 pm – World premiere
Saturday, 10 October, 4 pm – followed by a conversation with Mahmoud Hosseini Zad
Friday, 30 October, 7 pm – Concert
Saturday, 31 October, 4 pm – followed by a conversation with Mona Mirkamali
Friday, 4 December, 7 pm – Concert
Saturday, 5 December, 4 pm – followed by a conversation with Nahid Siamdoust
Admission is free, but registration is required. As places are limited, we recommend registering early:
Tickets and registration via Eventbrite
We look forward to welcoming you to the Tieranatomisches Theater and experiencing these concerts and conversations together.
Best wishes,
Elshan Ghasimi & JMH Schindele
