Kayhan Kalhor & Erdal Erzincan

The music traditions of Persia and Ottoman Turkey combine in this stunning collaboration.

Kayhan Kalhor is a Grammy Award winner, Womex Artist Award winner and five-time Grammy Award nominee. He is regarded as the world’s greatest master of the Kamancheh (Persian violin).

His innumerable projects and unique collaborations attract audiences around the globe. One of the most exciting is his duo with the renowned Turkish baglama player Erdal Erzincan.

The classical music traditions of Persia and of Ottoman Turkey that inspire the music of Kalhor and Erzincan share a great deal in common. This includes the ancient modal compositional system known as maqam. Improvisation plays a definitive role in their intensely spiritual and emotional performances. Their music brings the listener into its trance-like realm by interweaving ecstatic rhythms with sensual melodic phrases. Instrumental compositions flow into each other like one continuous work, with gently drifting passages in which the two instruments echo and improvise on different phrases.