We believe one size fits nobody.
This is 2013, Does it strike you too that more and more cities and people look alike?
It’s the same shops and international brands everywhere. That street you do your shopping in could be Barcelona, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Berlin or New York.
At one point you’ll surely find a starbucks.
How different this was in 1804: traveling took time and different cultures were divided by geographical borders. The first piano was imported to ancient Iran by Napoleon Bonaparte as a gift to the Persian emperor Fath-Ali Shah. The Persians stood in amazement about what must have seemed a very machine-like instrument to them, while at the same time, 2000 kilometers away, Beethoven used it to express his artistic vision
Being an improvising jazz musician and composer, l was hearing a different piano sound in my imagination for many years, yet never found a way to express it in the Jazz world.
It was my love for the art music of Iran and the middle east that directed me towards the possibities of the Forte Piano, but then out of its original context.
I hope you’ll join me on my artistic trip; A young musician taking the Forte Piano out of its context, composing a way into new directions.
There are four things that interest me:
First, the fascinating things that happen when you play today’s contemporary music on Mozart ’s piano. Secondly, to improvise on music that’s originally composed for other instruments, like Bach’s cellos suites and cantatas. Then there is the challenge of translating the beautiful sounds of the Iranian Santur and Arabic Qanun on to the European Forte Piano and finally, l want to compose new pieces for the historic Forte Piano.