ANOUSHA NAZARI mezzo-soprano & ANTOINE MORINIÉRE guitar

The Pharos Arts Foundation presents mezzo-soprano Anousha Nazari and guitarist Antoine Morinière in Baroque Labyrinth – an unusually intimate recital in which European early music meets the Persian musical tradition.

Born on the shores of the Caspian Sea, Anousha was awarded the International Prize at the Tehran Music Festival before moving to France in 2016, where she went on to appear at major European venues such as Philharmonie am Gasteig in Munich, Salle Cortot, and Beaux-Arts de Paris, presenting a repertoire and an artistic identity that fuse Persian and European influences and build a bridge between these two worlds.

Winner of numerous international guitar competitions, including the First Prizes at the International Sevilla Guitar Competition, the Wien Guitar Competition, and the Santa Cecilia International Competition, Antoine Morinière performs worldwide in venues such as Philharmonie de Paris, Wigmore Hall in London, Palau de la Musica in Barcelona, and in such renowned festivals Bachfest Leipzig, London Guitar Festival, Radio France Festival, among others.

For their concert in Nicosia, Anousha Nazari and Antoine Morinière will perform works by Handel, Dowland and Strozzi, alongside music by the 15th-century Persian composer Maraghi and in Morinière’s own setting of poems by the 13th-century Persian poet Rumi. In these wonderful arrangements for voice and guitar, the expressive links between these different musical traditions reveal themselves in the power of poetry and in the intense ornamental and melodic writing that brings centuries-old poetry into a new musical language with striking lucidity and passion.

Programme :

Abd al-Qadir Maraghi (1360-1435)

Tâ bé kéy Âzar?

George Frideric Handel (1685-1759)

Lascia ch'io pianga

Ombra mai fu

John Dowland (c.1563-1626)

Come heavy sleep

In darkness let me dwell

Flow my tears

Abd al-Qadir Maraghi (1360-1435)

Nasimé Sobhdam

Barbara Strozzi (1619-1677)

Amor dormiglione

L’Eraclito amoroso

Carlo Domeniconi (b.1947)

Koyunbaba

Antoine Morinière (b.1993)

Marâ yâft by Rumi **(1207-1273)