Program note:
One of the important differences between symmetry in visual and sonic realm is that in visual objects the symmetric aspect reveals itself instantly and the perception of symmetry is conveyed at once when you observe it, whereas in music, generally you need time to perceive symmetry. In this composition I used symmetric specialization which works very similar to the concept of immediate perception of symmetry in visual territory. this symmetric specialization works in a geometric level and it associates with our instant understanding of sound sources positioning at any single moment, then time passage is not a fundamental element in perception of the symmetric aspect, but more like sculpting the space.
Review by Ángel Arranz:
As if it was a Persian carpet, the composer Siamak Anvari (Teheran, 1981) releases in Toranj a plethora of spatially harmonic figures, which literally invade the space through sound. Anvari’s music evidences his previous training as a designer of Persian rugs, inasmuch as he cultivates highly stylized geometrical developments, which serve as controllers of the routes of the material through space. Such patterns, taken from the world of the rug design, and used as a sort of guides for sound spatialization (patterns which, on the other hand, are also basis for composition matters such as pitch generation, rhythm and timbre), impose, to a certain extent, a new semantic field in Anvari’s musical reflection, where concepts such as proportion, symmetry/asymmetry, repetition, juxtaposition, color combination and general structure are part of the composer’s daily life. The concept of time in Siamak Anvari’s music is perhaps the most crucial aspect, more important than, in this order, mathematical figuration itself and the sophisticated underlying composition machinery, since the passing of time makes a radical difference in the use of pictorial-abstract symmetries (geometry) and pictorial-symbolic symmetries (sound). While the computer-generated visual symmetries reveal themselves at first glance in geometrical conglomerates, these require naturally from the passing of time for their sound/spatial realization, whereby the listener internalizes the listening as a geometric narrative all senses as a sort of figured geometrical story. As with a performance of Czech Black Theatre, this pressing need to establish a measured, gradual character of illusory choreographic development of the sound materials, moved without any apparent threads and elevated to the category of quintessential characters with logical, closed roles, and therefore necessary in the plot, has as ultimate purpose the piece’s intimate disclosure. Somehow, time here does not play a role as a worktable or representation surface on a computer monitor, but rather it is understood as a process to sculpt space, modulated through different speeds assigned to each trajectory. It is about a circumspect music, extremely organized, where the pleasure of listening oscillates between an exquisite external self-contained figuration and a complete gestural sensuality absolutely primary in its interior