Kurdophone is a Vienna-based kurdish-jazz ensemble, founded by Omid Darvish (a singer and tanbur player) in 2017.
Kurdophone members are as follows : Sarvin Hazin (kamanche/violin), Amir Ahmadi (piano), Helene Glüxam (bass) and Sebastian Simsa (drums).
Their music has been classified as kurdish-jazz but they are remarkably successful in blending Iranian folk music with contemporary classical tunes as well.
As the musicians come from varied Iranian-Kurdish and Austrian backgrounds, they find a common cause and a shared language in Kurdish-Iranian music. Their pursuit is to bring Kurdish melodies (mostly tanbur-maqams) and western influences into a musical unity. Kurdophone’s first album ‘Isomer’ was released in 2019.
Omid Darvish was born in a family with Kurdish roots in Tehran, Iran. Growing up in such a multicultural atmosphere has led music to play a deeply significant role in his childhood.
His first steps into the world of music were learning how to play the violin at the age of 10. While he was focusing on the violin as his main instrument at the age of 18, the tambur, which is one of the oldest Iranian instruments, awoke his interest too. Among his numerous tambur teachers, Heidar Kaki and Yahya Ranaei are the two most influential ones. He also took lessons on Iranian traditional singing from Ali Khodaei. Sessions on jazz vocal from Martina Petz, jazz harmony from Uli Datler and classical composition from Arash Teymurian followed.
In 2017, he founded Kurdophone, an ensemble, whose main focus of attention is the combination of Kurdish and jazz music.
Sarvin Hazin was born in 1990 in Tehran and began her musical training when she was eight years old. She received her Honors Bachelor’s degree in Music Performance from The University of Tehran, School of the Fine Arts and Music in February 2013.
In addition to her appearances as a solo violinist, Hazin has collaborated with a number of Iranian professional orchestras such as The Iranian National Orchestra, Tehran Philharmonic Orchestra and The Parsian Chamber Orchestra. She was a nominated performer at the division of the recognized talents at Fadjr International Music Festival in 2013.
Sarvin moved to Vienna in summer of 2014 to study at The University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna under Professor Rainer Küchl. She has performed with various Orchestras such as Webern Symphonic Orchestra under great conductors including Zubin Mehta, Christoph Eschenbach and Semyon Bychkov.
In addition to playing the violin, Sarvin plays the Iranian string instrument kamancheh, which has led her to perform Persian and Kurdish music in Vienna regularly.
Sarvin currently performs with Bamdad Trio and Kurdophone Ensemble and she is a member of The Webern Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra.
Helene Glüxam was born in 1992 in Vienna.
She began her music education by playing the cello at the age of 5, changed later to the E-bass but also learned to play the clarinet and the saxophone along the way.
Helene started her studies in E-bass at the Department of Popular Music at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna in 2013, but she soon made herself familiar there with the double bass as well.
She finished her popular-music studies in 2018, under the supervision of Gina Schwarz and Willi Lager, continues to learn jazz-double bass from Peter Herbert at the Bruckner University in Linz and is an active member of the bacherlor studies of classical double bass by Werner Fleischmann at the University of Music in Vienna.
Sebastian Simsa was born in 1988 in Vienna – Austria. He started playing drums at the age of 10 and studied from 2009 to 2018 at the MUK (Private-University of Vienna for Music and Art) and the MDW (University for Music and Performing Arts of Vienna). Between school and university he spent a year in Paris exploring the diverse session-scene, which has been of great influence to the young drummer!
As musical diversity has always been very important to him he plays a lot of different styles of music from Jazz to Soul-Funk and Salsa. Within the last years concerts and theater for young-audience got more and more important to him and he was co-author of the book Max Spielt Schlagzeug (Max plays the drums) – an encyclopedia for children about drums and percussion instruments.
In 2017 he formed the modern chamber-folk-jazz quintet SIMSA FÜNF playing only original compositions. Critics as well as the audience have been very enthusiastic about their debut album The Time We Need – released in fall 2018 – which has been nominated for the German Record Critics Award.
Amir A. Ahmadi was born in 1988 in Iran.
He studied Engineering at the university of Ahvaz and meanwhile Amir also studied piano, music theory and composition. After the graduation he followed his desire to study music and moved to Austria. At the moment he studies composition under the supervision of professor Carola Bauckholt at the Anton Bruckner University Linz.
Next to the studies he also works as a pianist and organises contemporary, jazz and classical music events in Austria and Iran. In 2015 he founded an ensemble Studio Fugu that works in a field of Contemporary arts.
2021 Feb 26 | Die Bühne, Purkersdorf, AT | |
2021 Jan 22 | Summer Jazz Nites at Anton Bruckner Universität, Linz, AT | |
2020 Nov 10 | Dynamite Konzerte, Dresden, DE | |
2020 Oct 12 | Porgy & Bess – Salam Orient Festival, Vienna, AT | |
2020 Sep 29 | Alter Schl8hof, Wels, AT | |
2020 Sep 20 | Porgy & Bess, Vienna, AT | |
2020 Aug 28 | Limmitationes, Mogersdorf, Burgendland, AT | |
2020 Jul 31 | murSZENE, Graz, AT | |
2020 Jul 23 | Kultursommer, Vienna, AT | |
2019 Sep 14 | Creole Global, Berlin, DE | |
2019 Jul 5 & 6 | Rudolstadt-Festival, Rudolstadt, DE | |
2019 Mai 10 | Sargfabrik, Vienna, AT | |
2019 Mai 4 | Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien, Vienna, AT | |
2019 Mar 14 | RadioKulturhaus, Vienna, AT | |
2018 Dec 01 | Lange Nacht der Weltmusik, Vienna, AT | |
2018 Feb 01 | Radio Kulturcafé, Vienna, AT | |
2017 Dec 22 | Péniche Anako, Paris, FR | |
2017 Dec 03 | Sargfabrik, Vienna, AT | |
2017 Oct 23 | Salam Orient Festival, Vienna, AT |
Without trying to prove anything these five musicians showed sensually, convincingly, effortlessly and with great impact that ultimately there is just ONE planet and it has room for all of us. Jazz, classical and traditional music are, in a poetic and visionary way, filled into a mouthpiece, at the other end of which a message emerges that is curiously pulsating and unabashedly intimate in its contrariness. (Jörg Duit, Radio Ö1) Link>>
Universes could hardly be more different and perhaps that is why Kurdophone works the proverbial wonders: the individual musicians are completely centred and can therefore also be completely open to the others. They all share the same boundless, unembellished, loved and simultaneously hated world that pulsates through the musical sphere, charges itself and then reaches the audience as a concentrated voice of confidence. (Jörg Duit / Harald Tautscher)
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The strong compositions, wealth of colours, the flawless interplay, vast dramaturgical arc, the great on-stage presence and charisma of the band were convincing. Its emotional depth was moving.” (Creole Global Contest, Statement of the Jurty, Berlin 2019)
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