Iranian music ensemble Chahi, led by conductor and percussionist Mazyar Chahi, won the first prize in Folk Music category at the Sea Sun Festival held in the coastal town of Lloret de Mar in the Spanish city of Catalonia, September 18-23.
The ensemble presented two performances. One was the 'White Fortress', a musical piece based on a story in renowned Persian poet Ferdowsi's Shahnameh (Book of Kings). It was the same piece that had won the ensemble the first place in the folk category of the International Competition and Art Festival Vienna Star held in Vienna in November 2015, Honaronline reported.
The other performance was the 'Battle of Artemisium', a piece about warrior queen of Halicarnassus Artemisia who joined Xerxes at Salamis in his battle against the Greeks.
Like in the previous years, Chahi ensemble based its performance on percussion, particularly daf, a large Iranian frame drum often used in traditional and mystic music.
Representing Iran's ancient culture and civilization, the ensemble competed with other bands from France, Spain, Russia, India, Hungary, Lithuania, Cuba, Georgia and Turkey, and won the first prize.
At the competition, the band members Mazyar Chahi, Neda Zare, Mina Mehrizi, Mehdi Rajabzadeh and Mohammad Reza Ghaffari played daf; and Amir Reza Afkhami beat the 'dhol' (Persian: dohol), a double-headed drum used in Iran and the Indian subcontinent.
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