Shir-Mohammad Espandar: Music of Baluchistan (Iran

Shir-Mohammad Espandar: Music of Baluchistan (Iran)

Ostad Shir-Mohammad Espandar, son of Morad, was born in Bampur in 1927. His father was a Ney player and the style of Shir-Mohammad in Ney playing is obviously influenced by the style of his father. For more than fifty years he has been playing Donali and Nal (Ney). Shir-Mohammad also knows vocal Maqams as well as playing Donali; especially Kurdish song which he excels and has shown a peculiar skil...l in it. It must be added that presently he is the sole interpreter of Kurdish song in its original form. Shir-Mohammad immigrated to Indus (Send) Province of Pakistan and spent 15 years of his youth there. He had been familiar with Ney and played it before. In Pakistan he get acquainted with Donali and learned its playing under the tutelage of Jomal-Shah. In 1958 he returned home and since then he has resided in Bampur and spends by farming and music playing. He is the only survived Donali player in Baluchistan of Iran. His style in Donali playing is deeply affected by the great past masters, Jomal-Shah and Mersi-Khan. However, he has been able also to take advantage of traditional styles to create a unique expression in Baluchi music. Shir-Mohammad has always been at the side of his fellow countrymen, either in their happiness or in their sorrows; He accompanies the possessed ones, those who consign their soul and their body to Gwat, and seek their freedom in the songs Shir-Mohammad sings and in the music he plays. During a performance, Shir-Mohammad reaches a trance, begins an inward journey and goes far beyond himself, so far that he can see his today from outside and respond properly to the music and to himself; Again and again he travels inward and returns back, and it is during this ingress and egress, this upward and downward traveling, that he experiences revelations, and an enchantment for reconciliation and disengagement. The music of Shir-Mohammad results from this transcendental relatedness and comes out from this connection