Duo

A Girl Who Missed the Train is a mini opera for soprano and violin, based on a poem by Shamisa Mawj. Commissioned by Paisley Due. With special thanks to Melodies of Liberation

A girl who missed the train, 

Now she is like a boat, under the rain of loneliness, 

left unmanned amid storms 

A girl whose lashes are dusty from the house chores, 

and her moon-like face has been darkened by the oven's smoke 

A girl who craves education, But dirty hand of politics has sealed the school against her,

And acid has been burned her papers and her dreams 

A girl wanders the streets, searching for a piece of bread. 

She shines men's shoes, because she is the only man in the family 

A girl whose hair is feared by all, So, they concealed her hair. 

A girl who everyone is afraid of her revolutionary eyes 

And they cover her eyes. 

Who called this graveyard a country?

This is a graveyard where one by one, the young are buried with their dreams life suffers within me,

it is years a girl has been dead inside me, 

A girl who carries her own dead body on her shoulders, 

while all watches in silence.

Where Thou Smile, There is Home is a duo composed for violin and viola. It was commissioned by violist Muriel Razavi and violinist Ava Bahari.

Stay tuned for premiere information at the Houbara Festival in Cologne in April 2024.

How Could I Know is a duo for clarinet and piano commissioned by Toronto-based clarinetist, Peter Stoll. It is inspired by Rumi's Ghazal, Swallowing the Sun.

How Could I Know reflects how the Women, Life, Freedom movement pushed me out of my comfort zone, forcing me to confront the disorder within myself and around me—disorder I had been avoiding for a long time. At the heart of the piece is a process of striving for change and learning to accept the present while embarking on a journey of transformation.

HOW COULD I know this melancholy
Would make me so crazy,
make of my heart a hell
of my two eye raging rivers?
How could I know a torrent would
snatch me out of nowhere away,
Toss me like a ship upon a sea of blood,
that waves would crack the ship’s ribs board by board,
tear with endless pitch and yaw each plank
that a leviathan would rear its head,
gulp down the ocean’s water,
  that such an endless ocean could dry up like a desert,
that the sea-quenching serpent could then split that desert
could jerk me of a sudden, like a Korah, with the blend of wrath
deep into a pit?  

When these transmutations came about
no trace remained of that desert or the sea
How should I know how it all happened
since how drowned within Howlessness?

What a multiplicity of how could I knows?
But I don’t know-
for to counter that sea
rushing in my mouth
I swallowed a froth of opium

Ghaal 1855
Translated by late Dr. Franklin D. Lewis

His Gabbah Is Turquoise (2022), is a composition for double bass and piano comissioned by Ali Kian Yazdanfar for Sayeh Roshan Project.

His Gabbah Is Turquoise (2022) is a commission by Ali Kian Yazdanfar for the Sayeh Roshan Project. Its musical elements are inspired by patterns, textures and colors found in Gabbah. Gabbah in Farsi means raw, natural, and uncut and is a type of Persian rug with bright colors and rough and primitive textures. Its patterns are formed by asymmetric and symmetric knots and can be as diverse as the mind and imagination of its craftsman. The color turquoise represents wisdom, tranquility, protection, good fortune, and hope.

The Seville Orange Tree is a composition written for flute and piano. It was co-commissioned by flutist, James Strauss and pianist, Andre von Frasunkiewicz, in 2017 for the Bicentenary of the Birth of Bahaullah, the founder of Baha'i Faith.

Its Around 130 is a composition for marimba and fixed media. It is inspired by my baby boy's heart beat that I recorded on week 28th when I visited my doctor.
The tape part includes: my baby's heart beat, sound effects edited and processed on dumbak, recording of my husband's voice reading a passage about our baby's name, Elia, parts of my conversation with my doctor as well as other sound effects that represents sounds that a baby may hear when he is still inside his mom.

I would like to thank amazing and talented dumbak player, Bijan Rahmani, for recording sound effects on Dumbak for this composition.

When the Roses Laugh in Full-blown Beauty is a six-minute duo written for harp and marimba. I also have arranged a version for violin, cello and piano as well as Bb clarinet, cello and piano.

Audio information: performed by Emily Granger (harp) and Chris Sies (Marimba) at 2016 fulcrumpoint Discoveries!

Emily Granger (harp) and Claire Edwardes' (marimba) performance on December 22, 2020 on Youtube: https://youtu.be/HaRBNksSKKA

Dance in your Blood is a song cylce based on three poems of the 13th Century Perisan poet, Rumi, translated into English composed for soprano and piano.

Recently:

Dance in Your Blood won the Top Prize place at 2014 Violet Archer Composition Prize and will be publisehd in the Plangere Canadian Composers Series.

Postlude to Bamdad is inspired by Khoshe Chin in Avaze Esfahan composed by Rohollah Khaleghi and poem by Karim Fakor.

I originally wrote it for Bb clarinet, violin and and vibraphone and later arranged it for violin and cello as well.

A collaboration with Erica McBurney for fixed media and voice for thethe commemoration of the Martyrdom of the Bab.