The award supports the Healing with Music series, which sheds light on music's profound impact by inviting musicians to share the role music plays through moments of upheaval.
The NEA funding will support the appearance of Iranian kamancheh player Kayhan Kalhor on Wednesday, February 12 at 7:30PM at Richardson Auditorium, Alexander Hall on the Princeton University campus for the conclusion of the 2024-25 Healing with Music Series. He will join international correspondent Deborah Amos for "Finding Home in the Music of Iran," a conversation permeated by live performance centered on Kalhor's dedication to Iranian music through profound loss, anti-Muslim sentiment, and political unrest. This event will be amplified by Kalhor's performances as part of a free Live Music Meditation on Thursday, February 13 at 12:30PM and in concert with the DoosTrio at 6PM & 9PM.
"The NEA is proud to continue our nearly 60 years of supporting the efforts of organizations and artists that help to shape our country's vibrant arts sector and communities of all types across our nation," said NEA Chair Maria Rosario Jackson, PhD. "It is inspiring to see the wide range of creative projects taking place, including Princeton University Concerts' Healing with Music series."
"This grant award is a historic moment for Princeton University Concerts," adds PUC's Artistic and Executive Director Marna Seltzer. "For 131 years, our programming has been mostly made possible by the generosity of our patrons. To have the support of the National Endowment for the Arts for the very first time is not just vital financial reinforcement but also important recognition for the work that we do to expand the impact and accessibility of classical chamber music."
Returning to the concert hall in 2022 after the trauma of a global pandemic, PUC launched the Healing with Music series with a focus on artists exploring the role of music in their recovery from health crises. For the 2024-25 season, the focus of the events shifted to an exploration of music's healing role in times of socioeconomic conflict through the lens of artist-activists, with all the events moderated by award-winning NPR correspondent Deborah Amos, whose career has been focused on covering the Middle East. The overwhelmingly positive
response to the series — including an online library of audience reflections on healing with music — has made clear that this series hits upon something very needed in today's climate. The filmed interviews produced by PUC to introduce each event continue to collect thousands of views online.
"We are thrilled to have received this national recognition for our Healing with Music program," says Dasha Koltunyuk, PUC's Outreach Manager who conceived of the Healing with Music series. "These events, which delve into music's deep power through a unique and collective concert experience, tap into something essential in today's world. Kayhan Kalhor is a phenomenal artist and human, who has approached his life and art with such an inspiring depth of sensitivity and spirit of hope. We thank the NEA for acknowledging the power of our Healing with Music series and of this artist with their support."
In the wake of the Iranian revolution, Kalhor left his homeland and family as a teenager with nothing but a backpack and his beloved kamancheh (an Iranian bowed string instrument) in tow. Since that time, he has built an international reputation as one of the most famous performers and composers from Iran — touring with the New York Philharmonic; collaborating with John Adams as part of Carnegie Hall's Perspectives Series; and winning a 2017 GRAMMY Award with Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble, of which he is an original member. And yet, the constantly shifting political situations in Iran and the U.S. have continued to complicate both his personal and his professional life. The Healing with Music event is a chance to get to know this extraordinary individual.
For more information on other projects included in the NEA's grant announcement, visit arts.gov/news.
RELATED EVENTS
On February 13, the Live Music Meditation event and DoosTrio concerts present opportunities to get to know Kalhor on an even deeper, more multi-faceted level. The Live Music Meditation offers the opportunity to breathe in sound and silence through guided meditation as you listen to music more viscerally than ever before, meditating to Kalhor's playing, guided by Matthew Weiner, Associate Dean in the Princeton University Office of Religious Life. This is a FREE, unticketed opportunity to indulge in attentive, focused, and mindful listening.
The DoosTrio concerts appear on PUC's Performances Up Close series, where the audience sits on stage alongside the musicians for a more informal and intimate concertgoing experience. The DoosTrio comprises five-time Grammy nominee and Grammy winner Kalhor, Grammy-nominated pipa virtuoso Wu Man, and Grammy-winning tabla player Sandeep Das—established soloists in their individua traditions. These artists, who forged a relationship through their work as part of the Silk Road Ensemble, join forces to create a trio that highlights the ancient traditions of Persia, China and India in a 21st century program. Before the 9PM concert, there is a pre-concert Speed Friend-ing event offered as part of PUC's Do-Re-Meet series of social events for music lovers. Facilitated by Risa Grimaldi of TheSinglesGroup.com, who has been making matches from friends to business to romance for over 18 years across the tri-state area, this event is an opportunity to meet your fellow concertgoers over 8-minute "speed friend-ing" sessions and hors d'oeuvres from Olsson's Fine Foods.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
KAYHAN KALHOR, KAMANCHEH
Kayhan Kalhor is an internationally acclaimed virtuoso on the kamancheh (spiked fiddle), who through his many musical collaborations has been instrumental in popularizing Persian around the world and is a creative force in today's music scene. Kayhan is an original member of Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Project.
Born in Tehran, Iran, he began his musical studies at the age of seven under Master Ahmad Mohajer. A child prodigy on the kamancheh, he was invited at the age of thirteen to work in the Iranian National Radio and Television Orchestra, where he performed for five years. At seventeen, Kalhor began working with the Shayda Ensemble of the Chavosh Cultural Center, the most prestigious arts organization at the time in Iran. While performing with Shayda, he continued studying the Iranian classical repertoire (radif) with different masters. In 1978 Kalhor went to Rome to study Western classical music and continued his studies at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, where he received a degree in music. He has composed works for Iran's most renowned vocalists, including Mohammad Reza Shajarian and Shahram Nazeri and has performed and recorded with many of Iran's greatest artists. In 1991 he co-founded Dastan, the renowned Persian classical music ensemble, and in 1997 he formed Ghazal ensemble with Shujaat Husain Khan.
His commissions include works written for the Kronos Quartet and for Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Project, with whom he continues to compose for as well as tour. In 2002 he was nominated for a BBC Radio 3 World Music Award; In 2005 he was awarded the Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik ("German Record Critics' Award"); five of his recordings have been nominated for Grammys and in 2017 he was awarded a Grammy.
DEBORAH AMOS
Deborah Amos is a Ferris Professor of Journalism in Residence.
A longtime international correspondent, Amos spent much of her award-winning career at National Public Radio. Her reporting on the Middle East and refugees in the U.S. regularly featured on NPR's Morning Edition, Weekend Edition, and All Things Considered. She has covered the Syrian and Iraqi refugee crises, the economy in the Middle East, and the Arab youth surge. She has reported for ABC's Nightline and PBS's Frontline.
Amos is the author of two books: Eclipse of the Sunnis: Power, Exile, and Upheaval in the Middle East and Lines in the Sand: Desert Storm and the Remaking of the Arab World. She has won several major journalism honors, including a Courage in Journalism Award from the International Women's Media Foundation, a George Foster Peabody Award, an Edward R. Murrow Lifetime Achievement Award, and an Emmy.
SANDEEP DAS, TABLA
Hailed as a "creator of myths with Houdini-like skills" (The Sydney Morning Herald, Australia), Sandeep Das is one of the leading Indian Tabla virtuosos in the world today. A disciple of the legendary Pt, Kishan Maharaj ji of the Banaras Gharana, he debuted at the age of 17 with renowned Sitar maestro Pt. Ravi Shankar ji and went on to lead a prolific international career that now spans more than three decades. He has collaborated with top musicians and ensembles from across the globe such as Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble, with whom he has performed for the past 21 years, as well as Paquito D'Rivera, Bobby McFarin, and iconic orchestras like the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, and Chicago Symphony, among others.
A Grammy winning-musician and Guggenheim Fellow, Das' groundbreaking new music projects sit at the crucible of ancient tradition and modern innovation, enchanting audiences worldwide with "flawless playing" (Songlines Magazine, U.K.) and a "roadmap for irresistible aural adventures" (Downbeat Magazine, USA). His original compositions have been performed in over 50 countries at venues like China's Forbidden City Concert Hall, Australia's Sydney Opera House, and the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, California. Transcending Borders One Note at a Time, his most recent project, was launched in 2020 to widespread international acclaim, and seeks to harness the power of music to create positive social change.
WU MAN, PIPA
Wu Man belongs to a rare group of musicians who have redefined the role of their instruments, in her case, the pipa, a pear-shaped, four-stringed Chinese lute with a rich history spanning centuries. Not only is she recognized as the foremost pipa player in the United States, but she is also celebrated as an accomplished composer, educator, and one of the most prominent instrumentalists of traditional Chinese music. She has premiered hundreds of new works for the pipa, while spearheading multimedia projects to both preserve and create awareness of China's ancient musical traditions. As a principal, founding musician in Yo-Yo Ma's Silkroad project, Wu Man has performed throughout the U.S., Europe and Asia with the Silkroad Ensemble.
Born in Hangzhou, China, Ms. Wu studied with Lin Shicheng, Kuang Yuzhong, Chen Zemin, and Liu Dehai at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, where she became the first recipient of a master's degree in pipa. Accepted into the conservatory at age 13, her audition was covered by national newspapers and she was hailed as a child prodigy, becoming a nationally recognized role model for young pipa players. She subsequently received first prize in the First National Music Performance Competition among many other awards, and she participated in many premieres of works by a new generation of Chinese composers. Her first exposure to Western classical music came in 1979 when she saw Seiji Ozawa and the Boston Symphony Orchestra performing in Beijing. Ms. Wu is a recipient of the 2023 National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment of the Arts (NEA), one of the United States' most prestigious honors in folk and traditional arts. In 2023, she was additionally honored with the Asia Society's Asia Arts Game Changers Award, an annual award presented in New York City which recognizes and honors artists and arts professionals for their significant contributions to contemporary art.