Iranian musicians Behrouz Sadeghian and Faramarz Amiri delighted the audience on March 8 with “An Evening of Iranian Classical Music” in the Alice Peters Auditorium.

Sadeghian started the performance by playing the santur, a hammered dulcimer. The strings of the instrument are struck by two thin, wooden sticks called hammers. By striking the santur at different times and speed, Sadeghian created rhythms and melodies that filled the auditorium.

Amiri followed Sadeghian by playing the zarb, a goblet-shaped drum. With what seemed to be the barely tapping of his fingertips, Amiri complemented Sadeghian’s rhythm. Fifteen minutes into the performance, Amiri started singing in Persian.

The two-hour performance consisted of three different sections in which the musicians played different dastgahs.

“Dastgahs are collections of short melodic and rhythmic formulas called gusheh,” said Partow Hooshmandrad, an associate professor at the Fresno State department of music.

The gushehs, Hooshmandrad explained, are melodic and rhythmic formulas used for improvisation and composition.

Sadeghian and Amiri improvised most of the sounds based on five dastgahs — dastgah shur, dastgah dashti, dastgah homayoun, dastgah esfehan and dastgah bayat-e tork.

Amiri and Sadeghian did not practice for the event, yet the music seemed perfectly planned.

“When you play with a master like him [Sadeghian], you don’t have a choice but to be a good musician,”  Amiri said.

Amiri also played the daf, a framed drum. The daf has metal ringlets attached to the inner skin of the drum which allowed Amiri to create the sounds of different percussion instruments at once.

For most of the evening, Amiri played with his eyes closed and gave a passionate performance.

When Amiri started playing the daf at an increased rhythm, members of the audience started to nod their heads to Amiri’s solo. Sadeghian smiled at the audience and slightly nodded his head to Amiri’s performance as well.

The performance ended with a standing ovation and Sadeghian thanking the audience “for keeping this type of music” alive.

Amiri said it felt fantastic to have played at Fresno State with such a friendly audience.  

Amiri started taking music lessons at the age of 17. He said he has always been interested in drums. Mohammad Eftekhari and Jamal Samawati were his teachers who helped him throughout his musical career. Amiri has played in Iran, Germany and the United States, and currently teaches in Irvine, California.

Sadeghian started studying music when he was 12 years old.

Sadeghian had Reza Varzaden, a master santur player, as his teacher while he was growing up. Sadeghian has performed in Austria, Germany and the United States for more than 40 years. He currently works as a civil engineer for the state of California in San Diego. 

“When you start to play, you start to fly,” said Sadeghian, explaining he feels like he is in a different world when he is playing the santur.