Music In Exile presents: Maryam Rahmani with Grace Ferguson - 'Kamand' album launch, with support from Whelk

KAMAND is an exploration of acculturation, the delicate and often dissonant process of merging into a host culture while honouring ancestral roots.

Across the album, Maryam navigates improvisation and identity through santur, voice and kamancheh, supported by an ensemble of boundary-pushing collaborators: Rosalie Cocchiaro (flamenco rhythm), David Moran (cello), Sebastian Collen (piano, electronics) and Gustavo Quintino (double bass).

Each track is grounded in the Persian classical repertoire or inspired by poetry, particularly the words of 14th-century mystic Hafez. Yet the album resists tradition-as-orthodoxy, instead reimagining ancient forms through experimental structures, spontaneous composition and cross-cultural conversation.

Maryam says on her debut album: I think my first album shows how much I grabbed into my Iranian culture and how, at the same time, I am trying to integrate. Even music vice I dont see it successful in making a new language, I think they are still two different languages trying to make connection to each other and have a mutual understanding.

supported by Whelk

Saturday 30 August, 7pm
Tender
535 Sydney Road Brunswick