Dancing with Love

Mezzo soprano Afarin Mansouri left Iran for Ontario in 2003 after growing up in the post-revolutionary environment that allowed her to study, but not perform, music. In Canada she was able to pursue her interests in singing and, in particular, opera. 20 years later she has made a name for herself as a singer and composer, with some of her works recorded by the likes of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the Prague Metropolitan Orchestra. This album is a collection of her operatic excerpts and some standalone pieces, all in Farsi.

The instrumentation is largely Western, with appearances from tar (skin-covered lute) and ‘eastern percussion.’ Piano, clarinet, violin and cello provide much of the harmony with the piano doing a great job of imitating the open sustain of a santur (hammered dulcimer). For me, the most compelling tracks are those, such as ‘Alchemy’, which are more Persian in sound, as without an understanding of Farsi the operatic numbers lack context and are not interesting enough from a Western classical standpoint to compensate. Having said that, the solo flute melody, ‘A Lament for Love’, which concludes the record, is sublime.