Yol from Európe by Kairos Collective / Michiel van der Meulen
YOL
Isfahân-Kürdî Saz Semâî
On two occasions in 2018, I rescheduled a flight back home from a seminar so that I could attend an unscheduled performance of this piece by orchestras formed by Ross Daly. This first happened in Cardedeu, Catalunya, where it was a matter of postponing my flight to the same one a day later. The second time, in Iraklion, Crete, was a bit more complex. I changed my morning flight to the last one of the day. One-and-a-half hours before the concert and about three-and-a-half hours before departure, I went to the airport and asked a ground steward whether I could check in my luggage a bit earlier. He first said no, but when I told him I needed to attend a concert between check-in and boarding (“you mean now!?”), he saw the fun of it and made it happen. This, by the way, beautifully epitomizes Greek mentality and everything I like about the country. I rushed back to the venue, where the concert started about half an hour late, putting me on a rather tight schedule. I listened to my piece and had to start running to a taxi as soon as the applause began. I made it just in time, just as I like it.
There is nothing quite like hearing good musicians play a piece you wrote, and I actually prefer it over joining in. A piece originating in your mind, being transferred to paper, then to other people’s minds, to be subsequently brought to life by their hands, is sheer magic. The way that Harris Lambrakis plays the ney on this recording, with an Arab touch, made both me and him think of a rek (a small Arabic tambourine). We immediately called Vangelis Karipis who played a rek track that lifts the piece and beautifully complements Marijia Katsouna’s bendir. See [2] for an explanation of makam Isfahân-Kürdî.
Kairos Collective is the occasional ensemble that Michiel van der Meulen assembles to record or perform his contemporary modal music. Kairos is the personification of the right moment, the time to act or an opportunity to be seized, encapsulating the spirit and atmosphere of the collective's sessions.