DeutschIncense of Music 15
Yek
An olfactory concert – Sunday, 14 May 2017, 8 pm
Burnt Friedman: electronics
Mohammad Reza Mortazavi: tombak
Palais im Roten Salon, Volksbühne Berlin – Volksbühne link
On 14 May 2017, our series presents Burnt Friedman, one of Germany's most significant electronic musicians, and Mohammad Reza Mortazavi, a legendary tombak player from Iran. This will be their first concert together, and we are very curious to hear their music, and how scent and sound will unite and counterpoint one another. This time, we will burn rosemary from our own garden and opoponax from Iran.
Yek, the motto under which the evening stands, means "one" in Persian.
Damascius (born c. 462, died c. 538 AD), the last head of the Neoplatonic school of Athens, taught the Ineffable, the One-All, and the United as the three foundational concepts of his philosophy. This, however, brought him into conflict with the expanding Christian doctrine of the Eastern Roman Empire, forcing him to flee to Persia. And yet: the connection between the One and the Good was — and remains — one of the founding ideas of Western philosophy. The soul gathers itself, unifies itself, and in doing so brings forth the individual's good in inner harmony with itself. Moreover, modern set theory of the late 19th and 20th centuries, the foundational science of mathematics, builds on the concept of unity in a twofold sense: the concept of the One means both the self-identity of an individual element and "the set of all sets."
For guests who are particularly sensitive to smoke, this event is not recommended.
Burnt Friedman and Mohammad Reza Mortazavi
Artists
Burnt Friedman — electronics
Burnt Friedman (born 1965 in Coburg) looks back on nearly 40 years as one of the most innovative German electronic musicians. Initially enrolled as an art student in Kassel, he began focusing on music from the late 1980s onward. He studied as a postgraduate at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne, and had already begun releasing his studio productions and performing live by 1979. From Cologne, numerous notable musical collaborations followed into the 1990s, including with Jaki Liebezeit, Hayden Chisholm, Root 70, Atom™ (as Flanger), Tim Motzer, and Steve Jansen and David Sylvian (as Nine Horses). In 2000, Friedman founded his own record label, Nonplace, which has released 41 titles to date. Under his solo artist name Burnt Friedman, he worked deliberately against the generalizing prejudices many still held at the time about the authenticity of programmed music. His studio and stage partnership with Jaki Liebezeit, the former drummer of CAN, spanned 15 years; during this time the two musicians developed groundbreaking electro-acoustic music, deliberately distancing themselves from genre-bound formulas of Western European and Anglo-American listener expectations, in pursuit of a universal musical vocabulary.
Mohammad Reza Mortazavi — tombak
Mohammad Reza Mortazavi (born 1978 in Isfahan, Iran) has lived and worked as a musician and composer in Germany for 16 years. He began tombak lessons at the age of six and, at just nine years old, won Iran's most prestigious annual tombak competition. Over the course of his career, he developed more than 30 new striking and fingering techniques, revolutionizing the traditional playing style of the old masters. He has toured and produced with great success worldwide for years, winning over a growing international audience for his instrument and musical culture. Mortazavi performs as a soloist, in chamber settings, and across genres — at major open-air festivals such as Roskilde, WOMAD, and Fusion, on classical concert stages including the Berlin Philharmonie, and at dance, theatre, and sacred concert events. The release concert for his latest album, "Codex," took place at a sold-out Samariterkirche in Berlin.
Incense
Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis) is an evergreen, strongly aromatic shrub in the mint family, native to the Mediterranean, where it grows wild on sunny, rocky coastal slopes. Its name derives from the Latin "ros marinus," meaning "dew of the sea" — likely because it thrives along the Mediterranean coast, where salty sea air and fine morning dew settle on its needle-like leaves.
Since antiquity, rosemary has been a symbol of remembrance: Greek students wore sprigs of rosemary in their hair to strengthen memory during examinations, and it was thrown into graves at funerals as a sign that the deceased would not be forgotten. In the Renaissance it became a symbol of fidelity at weddings, and in many European households a sprig was hung over the door for protection against misfortune.
Burned as incense, rosemary releases a fresh, camphor-like, woody-herbaceous scent. It is associated with mental clarity, memory, and cleansing, and is traditionally used to sharpen concentration and clear negative energy from a space.
Opoponax is the gum resin of Opopanax chironium, a member of the carrot family native to the eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East, particularly Iran. The resin is extracted through incisions in the plant's root and hardens in the air into sticky, reddish-brown tears.
The name opoponax comes from the Greek, roughly meaning "juice of the all-heal root" — a nod to its medicinal properties valued since antiquity. Dioscorides and other ancient physicians described its use against cramps, inflammation, and respiratory ailments.
Burned as incense, opoponax releases a warm, balsamic-sweet, faintly animalic scent with earthy undertones. It is valued in perfumery and traditionally associated with warmth, sensual depth, and a grounding, soothing effect.