In a symbolic gesture, over 5,000 drummers across the globe will play their drums on July 19 to send the message of love.
The initiative ‘Drum Circle Around the World’ was founded by the American filmmaker Ken Thornton in Arizona in December 2012 and has grown larger since then for world peace and unity.
The drumming takes place every month at full moon in every local area. After drumming (at sunset) for an hour in a certain local time zone, the torch (drum) is passed on to the next time zone so that drummers there start drumming during their respective full moon and so on. This way all the drummers pass the drum/torch, creating a wave of love, peace and unity through forming a circle around the world, known as a drum circle.
From Iran, the professional tonbak (goblet drum) player Peyman Nasehpour has joined the initiative. “As an Iranian musician, I support this movement and invite other Iranian drummers to play for peace,” ISNA quoted him as saying.
Nasehpour is a distinguished percussionist with a scientific approach to performing and teaching tonbak. He also teaches daf and ghaval (Azeri frame drum commonly known as ‘dayereh-ye-Azeri’).
He is a passionate and dedicated educator and promoter of Persian music who gives a great perspective on Middle Eastern drumming.
Born in Tehran, Nasehpour, 42, holds a PhD in mathematics and is the son of maestro Nasrollah Nasehpour (vocalist and master of traditional Persian music).
He began his musical career as a soloist, an accompanist and a teacher when he was 17 and has been researching the Indian tabla since 1997.
Nasehpour has performed with his father and brothers as well as other great musicians such as Habil Aliev (Azerbaijani kamancheh player), Mohammad Reza Lotfi (Persian tar, setar and kamancheh player), Hassan Nahid (ney player), Massoud Shaari (setar player), Majid Derakhshani (tar player), Peter Giger (Jazz drummer), Elshan Mansurov (Azerbaijani kamancheh player), Gitti Khosravi (opera singer) and Gevorg Dabaghyan (duduk player).
