Jane Maryam (Jaane Maryam)
By Monika Jalili and Homayoon Beigi
Tar and Vocal
This song was original performed by Mohammad Nouri in the 1970s in Iran. It is in the Persian Language and is one of the most popular songs of that decade. This version was arranged by Homayoon Beigi for the Tar and Vocalist. The original performance by Nouri was done with a western style orchestra. The Tar is a central instrument in Classical Persian Music. The singer, Monika Jalili, is an American Soprano who has learned to sing in Persian through personal connections with the culture. The lyrics of the song were written by Mohammad Nouri and Kambiz Mojdehi in the 1970s, in Iran.
About the Artist
Monika Jalili
Iran…1950s-1970s…poetic songs popularized on radio and in films…then completely banned in 1979 at the time of the Iranian Revolution. Great poets and composers were forbidden to express themselves in a culture where poetry and music had always been so deeply ingrained.
Infused with new blood, new instrumentations, new arrangements, and love, these are the songs that Monika Jalili has awakened and brought back to life.
Born and raised in New York City, and a graduate of The Manhattan School of Music and Columbia University, and now based in Salt Lake City, Monika’s music career began in the world of musical theatre…..Broadway, Off-Broadway and touring with musicals around the US. That is how she had always envisioned her career to be...until one fortuitous mid-summer day in 2004, when she heard a Persian song from the 1950s entitled “Jaan-e Maryam.” This was the song that changed her life. And so began her journey..
Performances include the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, United States Naval Academy, The Smithsonian’s Freer and Sackler Galleries in Washington D.C., Libby Gardner Hall with the Utah Philharmonia Orchestra, Gallivan Center, and sold-out concerts at the Place des Arts in Montreal with The Montreal Symphony Orchestra.
Homayoon Beigi
Homayoon Beigi has been conducting research in acoustics for over 30 years and has studied and taught the physics of sound at Columbia University for over 25 years. He also studied music theory with the late Maestro Gregory H. Aslani, along with collaborations with that G.H. Aslani in the composition of a fusion work with three incarnations, featuring the contemporary composition of G.H. Aslani and Homayoon's Persian compositions and arrangement in Chahargah and Shur. Homayoon has been working on the theory and practice of introducing 24-tet microtonal harmony to melodies derived the Persian classical repertoire. He studied the Persian Kamancheh with the late maestro, Andranik Aroustamian, from 1983 to 1993. From 1993 to 1995 he studied the classical Persian etudes of Mirza Abdollah for the Tar under Reza Derakhshani. He has also self-studied the Persian Dotar in the style of late Maestro Haj Ghorban Soleimani since 1996. He has performed in many Persian classical and fusion venues including several appearances at Columbia University, Adalphi University, Symphonyspace, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, and the Bowery Poetry Club. His fusion work has involved Persian classical music with North Indian (Hindustani) Music (Tar and Dotar with Sitar and Tabla), South Indian (Carnatic) Music (Kamancheh with Mridangam and Voice), Persian popular oldies (Tar with Voice) and Contemporary American Music (e.g., George Gershwin on Tar with Voice), in collaboration with the American Suprano Singer, Monika Jalili. In 1995 and 1996 he won two consecutive Adventurous System and Software Research awards, while working at IBM Research, for the development of a paper-like interface using a tablet PC for entering and editing musical notation on a computer, utilizing pen-gestures and handwriting recognition technology. Dr. Beigi earned his BS (1984), MS (1985), and PhD (1991) from the mechanical engineering department of Columbia University. He worked at IBM TJ Watson Research Center for ten years (1991-2001) and since 2001 he has been the President of Recognition Technologies, Inc., conducting research on Speaker, Face, and speech Recognition. He has been an adjunct professor in the departments of Computer Science, Mechanical Engineering, and Electrical Engineering and has supervised PhD students in Civil Engineering at Columbia University since 1995.