Azerbaijani Music in Iran: Garmon Player Rahim Shahriyari

The female chorus joins [Rahim] in singing Azerbaijani songs like "Yasha Azerbaijan!" (Live Azerbaijan!) "Before, nobody would have dared to recognize the Azeri language or Azerbaijani culture," Rahim says. "You know, it takes guts to sing about Azerbaijan, about its language and its nation in Iran. In the past, you could never have said, `Yasha Azerbaijan! Yasha manim khalgim!' (Live Azerbaijan! Live my nation!) Now we sing such songs openly. I'm happy that Baku and Iranian musicians can come together and sing `Yasha Azerbaijan!' That's a revolution in itself." Dancers are also a new twist to the Araz ensemble. "This year, 22 years after the Iranian Islamic Revolution, we've now been able to add 12 Azerbaijani dancers," Rahim explains. "Some of them are young kids, but others are professional dancers who used to dance 30 years ago. They didn't dance for many years because it was prohibited. But I managed to get the government's permission to let them dance on stage again." The performance took place at the ten-day annual festival commemorating the establishment of the Iranian Revolution on February 7-16, 2001. This year 90 ensembles participated, including groups from India, Georgia, Germany, Italy and Spain. Rahim's group rehearsed nine months in anticipation of the event. Other Azerbaijani groups that performed did not have dancers or women. "Newspapers were writing about the Araz Ensemble as a big hit at the Festival," Rahim says. "Each group was allotted three days to perform, but they gave us six days." Mixing Azerbaijani traditional musical instruments with symphonic and Western instruments is new, too, as is having musicians from North and South Azerbaijan perform together in Iran. During a recent festival, Rahim's group performed with two brothers from Azerbaijan: guitarist Chingiz Sadikhov and drummer Aflan Sadikhov. The group also invited a clarinet player from Baku -- Abdulagha Huseinov. "That was the first time that a guitarist had performed with Azerbaijani musicians in Iran," Rahim says. "We also had the percussionists play a duet with Housein Afshari, one of the drummers in our group. It was another first for Azerbaijani music in Iran."