TEHRAN – Iranian vocalist Alireza Qorbani will be performing concerts in the Netherlands and Belgium in late May.

Together with his group featuring Saman Samimi on kamancheh and setar, Milad Mohammadi on tar and setar and Zakaria Yusefi on daf, Qorbani will give his first performance on May 27 at the Nieuwe Kerk, a Dutch Baroque Protestant church in The Hague.

The performance will also be repeated the next day.

“Alireza Qorbani has been at the forefront of Persian traditional music for many years,” the organizers have said in a statement for the concerts.

They also stated that he has professionally developed his rich and enchanting voice since the age of 12, and added, “With his progressive outlook, Qorbani has managed to take traditional Persian music into the 21st century.”

“As a solo singer of the Iranian National Orchestra, as well as in his small quartet formation, Qorbani has managed to combine different musical styles from the Middle East [West Asia], establishing his name in the international history books forever,” the statement noted.

The quartet will then leave The Hague for the Belgian city of Ghent to give a concert at Turbinezaal on May 29.   

The organizers also called Qorbani a singer “blessed with a beautiful voice and great musical ability.”

Qorbani’s performance is familiar to the lovers of Persian traditional music in Europe.

He gave one of his few live performances since the COVID-19 pandemic in December 2021 in Germany and another in Switzerland.

He has collaborated with many musicians across the world in several joint performances. The most recent one was carried out with Azerbaijani vocalist Alim Qasimov in February at the Expo 2020 Dubai as part of Iran’s program for the world fair.

Qorbani and Qasimov also collaborated in several other performances, including a concert during the 18th edition of the Konya International Mystic Music Festival in the Turkish town of Konya last September.  

Earlier in December 2020, Qorbani and Qasimov released a duet single entitled “Rababi” featuring a poem by Rumi.

Qorbani has participated in several international projects in Europe such as Le Rhythm De La Parole, SOUFFLES DU MONDE, Ivresses-le Sacre de Khayyam with Tunisian singer Dorsaf Hamdani, concerts with the Dusseldorf Symphony Orchestra, Kamel Orchestra Vienna and the Vancouver Opera Orchestra.

Photo: Vocalist Alireza Qorbani performs an open-air concert under Tehran’s Azadi Tower on March 20, 2022. (Mehr/Behnam Tofiqi)

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