Elahe Amani:

I went to see the first performance of ‘Maman Shamsi Love Songs’, a musical performance by Ziba Shirazi, Mehrdad Arabi, an internationally acclaimed master of Persian music, and faculty of ethnomusicology department at UCLA and Hamed Poursaee, a composer and classical guitarist in Los Angeles. While I knew my good friend and well-loved artist of the City of Angels Iranian community, Ziba Shirazi, would be the main singer in the musical, I did not know what to expect. Well, it turned out to be a joyful night of traditional Iranian music, a rather new creative musical, a combination of storytelling, singing, and music. Ziba Shirazi had the role of Maman Shamsi and while sharing her stories, she was singing the street songs of the early decades of 20th century as Maman Shamsi sang them in the privacy of her home. The show was a bundle of mixed feelings of joy and loss, a massive current of old memories rushing through the passage of time. The lyrics of the songs gathered moments of my childhood memories, dusted off and revived them. My feelings were like a murmuration of a thousand birds flying together, each carrying faint visions of my childhood. Reflections of family gatherings, Sizdeh Bedars, Nouruz, in whirling ever-changing patterns, pivoting at a moment’s notice between the joy and the loss of those who are no longer with us. These were the songs of the streets that I had not heard for many decades. They gave life and presence to faded memories of the songs that my aunts sang while Ashraf played frame drum, Ezat played tonbak, Daryoush played violin and Abdullah played santoor.

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