DeutschIncense of Music 47
A multisensory concert – Saturday, 8 February 2020, 8 pm
Misagh Joolaee: kamancheh
Andrei Uskov: guitar
Incense: Cacao, Vanilla
PANDA Theater in der Kulturbrauerei, Knaackstr. 97, 10435 Berlin
We look forward to the second event of the year, a double concert by two virtuosos on very different instruments: Misagh Joolaee, kamancheh, and Andrei Uskov, guitar. A contrasting evening, harmonious in composition. It is accompanied by the warm, sweet scents of cacao and vanilla — two plants with shared roots in Mesoamerica, whose earthy sweetness lends the evening an enveloping, comforting depth.
Artists
Misagh Joolaee — kamancheh
Born in Mashhad in 1983 and raised in the northern Iranian province of Mazandaran, Misagh Joolaee began playing the violin at the age of eight. Within five years he completed learning the Persian classical repertoire "Radif." At 13 he won the Fadjr music competition in Iran, and studied setar, tar, and especially kamancheh with various Iranian masters, followed by training in piano and violin in European classical music. In 2009 he founded the ensemble "AAVAAN," performing his own compositions, and won the "Creole – Global Music" competition in Germany in 2010. In 2015 he founded the Flamenco-Persian ensemble "Chachipen" with musicians from Andalusia, Spain. In 2011 he also founded an Anatolian-Persian duo with Turkish baglama master Levent Özdemir. In 2014 he performed as kamancheh soloist in a performance of Avet Terterian's 5th Symphony with the Braunschweig State Orchestra. He worked as a lecturer at the World Music Faculty of the University of Hildesheim from 2011 to 2014, and completed his master's degree in electrical engineering at Leibniz Universität Hannover in 2015.
Andrei Uskov — guitar
Andrei Uskov is a guitarist from Belarus.
Incense
The cacao tree (Theobroma cacao) is a small, evergreen tree native to the rainforests of the Amazon basin. Its large pods grow directly from the trunk and older branches, containing cacao beans surrounded by sweet, white pulp.
For the Maya and Aztecs, cacao was a sacred plant — its botanical name, Theobroma, means "food of the gods" in Greek. The beans were prepared into a bitter, spiced drink consumed during ritual ceremonies, weddings, and offerings; the beans themselves even served at times as a form of currency.
Burned as incense, cacao releases a warm, earthy, chocolatey aroma with a faint, slightly bitter depth. It is said to have a heart-opening, grounding effect, and remains used today in modern cacao ceremonies to support centering and emotional openness.
Vanilla (Vanilla planifolia) is a climbing orchid vine native to Mexico — the only orchid genus cultivated worldwide for consumption. Its long pods, the vanilla beans, form only after labor-intensive hand-pollination of the flowers, followed by a weeks-long curing and drying process.
Vanilla was first cultivated by the Totonac people of Mexico, and later adopted by the Aztecs, who used it to flavor their cacao drink. Spanish conquistadors brought vanilla to Europe, where it quickly became a prized luxury. Today, most of the world's production comes from Madagascar.
Burned, vanilla releases a sweet, warm scent with creamy undertones. It is credited with a calming, comforting effect — a scent believed to ease stress and create a cozy, inviting atmosphere.