The change in the atmosphere as the Shanbehzadeh Ensemble was drastic. Practically every person watching Zakir Hussain got up and left following his performance. Slowly, the crowd became dominated with Persians. (Even though it was early in the semester and my "self directed language learning, I could tell they were speaking Farsi.) The announcer came on the stage and introduced the Ensemble reading from the pamphlet: "Now living in France, he has become a voice of the Persian community there, speaking out against the current Iranian regime and drawing its ire for his refusal to keep silent." The woman also said that Saeid Shanbehzadeh is a master of the neyanban, or double-reed bagpipe. This was my reaction, "whaaaat? A bagpipe?"
The performance was amazing. The group had so much energy. During the show I kept thinking to myself, "no wonder these guys live in France. I don't think Iran would be very accepting of this style of music."
Saeid was gyrating his hips, screaming at the top of his lungs, and he even got so wound up that he took off his shirt and was dancing all around the stage. This video tells you a lot, minus the shirtless aspect-
There are many things I took away from this performance, including: (1) the crowd was sooo into the music- everyone was dancing and screaming. I don't know if they knew who the group was and already loved the music or if the crowd grew to love the group in only a matter of minutes. Music transcends every culture. (2) Saeid only spoke once during the show. It was hard to understand everything he was saying but he basically said that he loves every country and every person and there shouldn't be any hate in this world. Even though his music is not widely accepted in Iran, he found a way he can express his passion for music...and life.
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I spent a day at the Folk Festival but missed this group. It sounds fascinating, and I'll have to learn more. Isn't it odd that almost every culture has something like a bagpipe?