Music on the Borderland: Remembering and Chronicling the 1979 Revolution’s Shadow on Iranian Music is a book by Keyan Emami, published by Asemana Books.
Language: English
This book explores how the 1979 Revolution profoundly shaped Iranian music through the personal journeys of contemporary composers, revealing their struggles, triumphs, and the enduring sociopolitical challenges they faced. A must-read for anyone interested in Iranian culture, the resilience of artists, and the transformative impact of historical events in modern history.
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Endorsements
Keyan Emami’s study is important chiefly because it comes “from the inside”. It is written by a person who has lived the stories he lays before the reader, by an artist who has directly experienced post-revolution Iran and can look back at this difficult reality critically, from the perspective of a now highly accomplished doctoral graduate of one of North America’s finest institutions, and a Juno-nominated composer to boot. Dr. Emami’s work is a recommended read for anyone who shares his background, but also for non-Iranian audiences who need to learn about an important chapter of world history and its cultural dimension, and to hear it “from the horse’s mouth”.
Norbert Palej; Composer; Artistic Director of U of T New Music Festival; Associate Professor, Faculty of Music, University of Toronto
I knew Keyan as a gifted and prolific composer, moreover one who deepens into musical meaning in a profound manner that has an immediate and lasting effect on his listeners, but his remarkable ability to write in such a thoughtful and absorbing way, was an unexpected surprise. This book is a revelation of a mind that effortlessly crosses the divide between academic language and powerful prose that feels at times fictional, particularly in sections where the author warns the reader about the upcoming brutal and inhuman scenes that can emotionally overwhelm even hardened readers. There is nothing fictional, however, about this personal, heartrending, and very real story of cultural deprivation, oppression, resistance, and survival. There is also nothing fictional about the heroic personal and communal resilience of a people with a millennial-long history of intellectual and cultural accomplishment, speaking music to power and defiantly but also proudly enduring the consequences of such defiance. This book speaks powerful music to inauthentic power and will resonate with everyone who has felt the need to speak out but did not have the requisite courage to suffer the consequences. The minute I started reading “MUSIC ON THE BORDERLAND” I knew that I would not be able to put the book down until I reached the last page. Once you too start reading it, you will know what I mean.
Christos Hatzis; Composer, Intuiter, Thinker, Educator; Professor, Faculty of Music, University of Toronto
