Mehr Ensemble and Regular Mehr

Rain outside my window in Berkeley this week.

We had another day of rain today, possibly the last one this week. Though weather doesn't normally affect my moods too much, I felt sad and tired when I woke up to rain this morning. Well, it might have nothing to do with the weather anyway. Let's not talk about sadness, though. Let me share something I recently found with you. My friend, Dr. Zari Taheri, sent me links to videoclips of musical presentations by Mehr Ensemble, of whom I had never heard before. All the musicians in this group are very young, but pretty accomplished in their instruments. The interesting thing about them is that this is an all-women group. Take a look at this videoclip. The best I could make out about the group through watching all the clips is that their composer and aristic director is Azar Zargarian, who also plays the Tar, with Mehrbanu as the vocalist, Hannaneh Saeidi on Qanun, Najmeh Saghari on Barbat, Sanaz Keshavarz on Tombak, Marjan Tavakoi on Tanbur and Daf, and Raana Shieh on Kamancheh. I found this part of their presentation in Italy particularly uplifting because of the percussionists' (Daf and Tombak) interaction with one another. They are young and we must watch them over the coming years as they do seem to have great potential. (If you are unable to access YouTube, check this out. You can see their other clips there, too.)

These are the last few days of college winter break, and I smiled to myself this morning when I found not one (Iden), but two of my sons' friends sleeping in the living room. I was further surprised this evening to see them all back at the house, as my younger son and I have been having some rocky times together recently. He came and talked to me about the things he had put off doing for a long time (the source of our conflict). Apparently, he accomplished many of them today. Interesting. Now they are back to sitting around and talking and laughing together and something tells me I will have to feed them all shortly. Why don't I mind that?! I have been working on a work-related project all day and will continue until it's finished tonight, coming back to reply to comments when I'm done. Have a good evening in our parts and a happy morning in Tehran and a good time in all the places in between.

P.S. For those of you who live in these parts, I would like to tell you that Berkeley Lecture Series will have a program this coming Saturday, January 12, 2008 at 3:00 P.M., at 101 Moffitt Library of UC Berkeley. The lecturer will be Professor Sohrab Behdad of Denison University, who will talk on "The Rise and Fall of Iranian Social Classes in the Post-Revolutionary Iran." Please note that the meeting has a different time and venue than Berkeley Lecture Series' usual. Lecture is in Farsi.