‘Music brings us closer together’: Distinguished Artists Series performers sing songs from Iran
- Ethan Barker, Staff Writer
- 14 minutes ago
- 3 min read
No matter where you are on campus, music is woven into Willamette's fabric. Friday nights feature a cappella groups performing on Jackson Plaza, and house shows host student bands performing varied genres. Students also perform year-round in choirs, bands and orchestras. Additionally, the Grace Goudy Distinguished Artists Program, started in 1983, features performers from various cultures.
This year’s final concert for the program, held on April 8, featured Iranian sisters and vocalists Mahsa and Marjan Vahdat.
Based in the Bay Area, the sisters perform traditional and contemporary Persian music infused with regional styles. Despite performing in a language unfamiliar to most of the Willamette audience, Mahsa noted that her performance relies on the universal form of musical expression to communicate across cultural and political divides.
"Music is something that can remove the boundary between peoples,” she said ahead of the show. “We are from different cultures, but music can affect human beings regardless of where we are from. When you perform to an audience that doesn't understand your text, you want to transfer this emotion of joy, of hope, of sorrow. … We are living in a world where politicians try to divide us, and music brings us closer together.”
At the time of submission for publication, the U.S. has initiated a naval blockade of Iran after peace talks fell apart between representatives from the two nations. The peace talks came after over a month of strikes and retaliation in the region.
The sisters’ appearance at Willamette is part of a career that began under significant legal and political restrictions. Following the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, female solo voices were banned from public performance, a policy that Mahsa described as a primary obstacle in her musical development.
"The path of music, or this music journey, was not easy for me,” she said. “I knew that it would be a challenging path, but it was an essential necessity for me. I felt that nothing can prevent me from doing this music.”
Jean-David Coen, artist-in-residence at Willamette and director of the Distinguished Artists Series, shared that the goal of the program was to bring world-class talent to Salem to inspire students through firsthand experience. Coen, who is retiring at the end of this academic year, noted the impacts of working with artists in a live setting.
"I think that one of the ways in which musicians and artists generally become inspired is by experiencing the work of others firsthand. … The more a young artist consumes art and life, the greater their creations are," Coen said.
Coen’s direction for the series focuses on the emotional impact of the performance over specific genres. The specific source or style of the music is less important than its ability to function as a unique form of communication and teaching.
"They can't be described, the feelings that we have when we listen to music. Great music is great music; it doesn't make any difference what the source of it is or what the style is," Coen said.
The Vahdats’ repertoire is rooted in Iranian poetic heritage. Mahsa said that bringing these texts and melodies to a Western audience is a deliberate effort to counter common media portrayals of Iran by focusing on the country’s artistic and intellectual history.
"I hope it can create curiosity about Iran,” Mahsa said. “Because of many political problems and shadows, many things are not visible in media. I feel the importance of bringing the sentiment, the beauty, the wisdom, and the passion of this world to another world. It gives a better understanding of each other.”
Marjan reinforced this, describing art as a way to eliminate obstacles that prevent human interaction across boundaries. The goal of her performances is to provide a narrative of cultural beauty that contrasts with international news headlines.
"Art has the power to banish all the borders of ethnicities, things that people find difficult to interact with each other,” Marjan said. “Art has the power to eliminate all these obstacles for human interaction. We're trying always to show the beauty because always the main voice from Iran is the ugliness.”