Arsha Kaviani is a citizen of the world. He knows many lands but doesn't swear allegiance to any of these lands. Born in Dubai, UAE to Iranian parents, Arsha'is real home is any auditorium that houses a grand piano, where imagination is alive, where arias play and passions are enflamed, where concertos blaze fire across the black and white keys of a grand piano. Arsha Kaviani is a concert pianist in the physical world. In his soul, he is an artist. Classicalite caught up with the pianist on an early Sunday morning in Portland, Oregon and a late evening in London, England.
(Photo : Arsha Kavani Website Studio Publicity Shot)
Classicalite - Give us a little bit about your background?
Arsha Kaviani - I was born and raised in Dubai, to Iranian parents.They left Iran in the 70s and settled in Dubai, bringing with them recordings of Beethoven/Mozart Piano Concerti, Chopin, Bach and always had it playing around the house - and when my brother started piano lessons I naturally wanted to follow suit. I quit shortly after, though, because of how boring I found scales and tedious exercises; things that simply are not stimulating to a six-year-old!
Classicalite - What did your parents do for a living?
Arsha Kaviani - My father had, and still has, a general trading business that mostly deals with electrical goods and construction equipment, and my mom started a few businesses herself but ended up focusing on raising me and my brother!
Classicalite - What does music mean to you?
Arsha Kaviani - A musician I seriously look up to is Krystian Zimerman, and he always says, 'music is organizing people's emotions in time' which I find very appealing to me.
Classicalite - It allows you to communicate in a way you otherwise might not be able to?
Arsha Kaviani - For me, music and the arts are the only things at the interesection of the venn diagram where all cultures, races, and people meet. There are so many things in music that cannot simply be expressed in words, and if they could, then music would really not be necessary. Music is a science to me, and uses frequencies and 'sonorous air', as Busoni called it, to communicate things that everyone feels regardless of their background, and a master composer/performer is one who can masterfully evoke and resonate certain frequencies in us that are otherwise not possible, or extremely difficult to do with other art forms.
Classicalite - You used the word science to describe your approach to music? Is your approach to performing very structured?
Arsha Kaviani - No, my approach to learning a work is very very structured and almost scientific but, when I go on stage, I feel like every piece of music is a story and my job is to use everything in my knowledge and perception to see what the 'author' of this story is trying to communicate, what are the characters in the story like. How do they develop, what are the most intricate details of the story and its characters? I try and learn and internalise all of it as deeply as possible and then go out and try to tell this story in the way that I have understood it...sorry, that's extending from the literature analogy."
Classicalite - Is piano your best way of communicating?
Arsha Kaviani - I always say I am a musician who happens to play the piano and I'm very glad that is the case, because I could sit and take a part of a Verdi opera the same way I could a string quintet at the piano. The communicative tools of music as a language are phenomenally undervalued in the education system. Take the fugue for example (a four-voice one for purpose of argument). A Bach four-voice fugue is basically the perfect conversation between four incredibly good listeners and speakers on a subject, something no other spoken language can truly emulate to that same perfection, and that's why I feel so passionately about trying to advocate for diplomacy and dialogue through music, especially in the troubling times we live in today.
Classicalite - Do you compose?
Arsha Kaviani - Yes,composition and improvisation are some of the most important aspects to my being a musician. Almost every concert of mine will have standard staples of the repetoire, an original work or transcription, and improvisations on themes the audience suggests, in addition to lesser-known masterpieces, like Medtner and Feinberg, etc.
Classicalite - How would you describe your compositions? Who are they comparable to?
Arhsa Kaviani - It's best described as a culmination of all the music I have learnt and studied, and listened to and admired in addition to a layer of (I hope) originality! And the single most important tool to me as a composer and improviser is colour.
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