Elshan Ghasimi: A Reinterpretation of the Radīf | Dastgāh-e Chahārgāh

With *Dastgāh-e Chahārgāh*, the composer and tar virtuoso Elshan Ghasimi will continue her multi-year cycle *The Reinterpretation of the Radīf* in autumn 2026. In this project, she is devoting herself to the entire Radīf – the orally transmitted canon, memory and musical heritage of Persian music. She is the first woman to undertake a systematic reinterpretation of all twelve subsystems; each becomes the starting point for a standalone contemporary work in its own right.

The cycle reveals a sonic dimension of classical Persian music that remains largely unknown in Europe. *Dastgāh-e Chahārgāh* will have its premiere on 9 October at the TA; five further concerts will follow until 5 December.

The first chapter, Dastgāh-e Shur, was premiered on 10 November 2022 in the basilica of the Bode Museum, at that time in collaboration with the Museum of Islamic Art. Since then, Ghasimi has presented her work on the Radīf across Europe, including at WOMEX 2023 in A Coruña. Trained at the Tehran Conservatoire of Music, Ghasimi became acquainted with various Radīf traditions in Tehran and Azerbaijan. She came to Germany in 2016. As a woman, she had been unable to work publicly as a solo artist in Iran. It was only in Germany that the artistic freedom and institutional conditions emerged under which she was able to develop this long-term project.

Following the massacres in Iran in January 2026 and the ensuing war, the transmission of this cultural memory has taken on an added sense of urgency. As a cultural ambassador for Persian musical culture, Ghasimi conveys a more complex and nuanced picture of Iran – a country with cultural traditions stretching back millennia, which cannot be reduced to regime, repression and war, but points beyond them.

The Radīf

The Radīf – literally ‘series’ or ‘order’ – consists of more than 300 melodic models, the gushehs, which are organised into twelve modal subsystems, the dastgāhs and Āvāz. It is neither a composition nor a fixed score, but rather a musical grammar that is passed down orally and internalised through listening, playing and memorisation. In every performance, memory, interpretation, composition and improvisation are recombined. Since 2009, the Radīf has been included on UNESCO’s List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

Ghasimi’s starting point is the various versions of the Radīf, in particular the canonical tradition of Mīrzā Abdollāh. Unlike in a traditional Radīf performance, she does not follow a single version, but rather relates different versions to one another. All the gushehs of the respective subsystem remain the starting point for her work. She does not simply add new melodies to the Radīf: through the interplay of composition and improvisation, she reshapes transitions, temporal relationships and internal tensions. In this way, she makes the internal order of the Radīf audible whilst simultaneously setting it in motion.

The second chapter is devoted to the Dastgāh-e Chahārgāh subsystem. Its musical identity arises not solely from a specific set of notes, but from microtonal nuances, central reference notes and characteristic melodic movements. Following Shur, Chahārgāh signifies a deliberate deepening of the artistic endeavour: a focused listening to recurrence, transition and transformation.

Elshan Ghasimi at the TA T

This work finds a special resonant space within the early-Classical rotunda of the Veterinary Anatomical Theatre. The building, designed by Carl Gotthard Langhans, is itself the result of a reinterpretation: it combines ancient models of the circular temple and the amphitheatre to create a new architecture of knowledge.

Constructed for the teaching of veterinary anatomy, its architecture organises bodies and directs attention: who speaks, who listens, and from where? In their own distinct ways, both the building and the work thus bring traditional orders into a new present.

In 2026, the TA T’s curatorial programme will focus on listening within and through this architecture. The focus is also on cultural heritage as a living practice, continually re-created by the communities that engage with it. Ghasimi’s reinterpretation of the radīf enters into a dialogue with these questions and brings a further practice of listening, transmission and reinterpretation into the historic lecture theatre.

TA T first presented Elshan Ghasimi’s work during Open Monument Day 2025, curated by Lilli Maxine Ebert. The collaboration will continue in 2026 with Dastgāh-e Chahārgāh.

Discussions

The curator of the Radīf project, Julian Malte Hatem Schindele, and the TA T curators Felix Sattler and Paz Ponce have developed a three-part programme of talks with guests to accompany the Saturday concerts.

10 October — The writer and translator Mahmoud Hosseini Zad speaks on the topic ‘Translating Means Remembering’ about literature, cultural mediation and the mutual perceptions of Germany and Iran.

31 October — Musicologist and Radīf expert Mona Mirkamalier explains how musical knowledge is passed down, canonised and reinterpreted.

5 December — Media and Middle East studies scholar Nahid Siamdoust turns her attention to music, the political public sphere and pop culture in Iran – from Baraye and *Woman, Life, Freedom* to today’s repressive conditions. The talks are specifically aimed at an audience with no prior knowledge.

The talks are aimed at an audience with no prior knowledge and take place following the Saturday performances, after an interval of approximately 30 minutes.

They are moderated by Julian Malte Hatem Schindele (Bublitz), Felix Sattler (Chief Curator at TA T) and Paz Ponce (Curator for Outreach and Public Programmes at TA T).

Duration of the discussions: approximately one hour.

Participants

ELSHAN GHASIMI

“In her playing […] every phrase is imbued with deep thought and solemn authority.”

— Michael Church, *Music’s Lost and Found*

Elshan Ghasimi (born 1981 in Isfahan, Iran) is a virtuoso on the Persian long-necked lutes tar, setar and robab, as well as the dayere, and an expert in Persian art music. She is a versatile artist, composer, innovative performer and dedicated teacher, whose work explores the intersections between tradition and modernity, East and West, and music and other artistic disciplines.

Deeply rooted in the Radīf, the repertoire of the Persian musical heritage, Ghasimi has devoted many years to mastering it and is now driving forward its reinterpretation within a contemporary artistic context. At the age of 17, she became the youngest member of the Iranian National Orchestra, marking the start of her career. She has been living in Germany since 2016, where she continues to perform as a soloist, compose and play with renowned ensembles such as Concerto Köln. Her work combines the Persian musical heritage with a wide range of musical genres – including contemporary classical music, jazz, experimental music and early music.

GUESTS

Mahmoud Hosseini Zad (born 1946 in Firuzkuh, Iran) is a writer and translator of contemporary German-language literature into Persian. Among other works, he has translated pieces by Bertolt Brecht, Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Judith Hermann, Ingo Schulze, Uwe Timm and Peter Stamm, and was awarded the Goethe Medal in 2013.

Mona Mirkamali is a musicologist and expert on radīf. Her research focuses on the oral transmission of musical knowledge and the changes in Persian music brought about by mediatisation and standardisation.

Nahid Siamdoust is a scholar of media and Middle Eastern studies at the University of Texas at Austin and will be a Humboldt Fellow in Berlin in 2026. She is the author of *Soundtrack of the Revolution: The Politics of Music in Iran* and conducts research on Iranian music, media, the public sphere and politics.

CURATOR

Julian Malte Hatem Schindele is an artist, curator, art historian and founder of Bublitz. His work centres on long-term artistic collaborations, cultures of memory and the interconnection of different forms of art and knowledge. He is curating *The Reinterpretation of the Radīf*.

Imprint

A collaboration between Bublitz and TA T.

Bublitz:

• Curator: Julian Malte Hatem Schindele (Bublitz)
• Graphic design: Masoud Morgan

Bublitz is a curatorial platform founded in 2011 for exhibitions, publications, music and discussion projects. It focuses on long-term collaborations with artists and on bringing together different art forms and fields of knowledge. Bublitz has been supporting Elshan Ghasimi’s work since 2016.

TA T

• Head: Felix Sattler
• Curator for Education & Outreach: Paz Ponce
• Project management: Antonia Willisch
• Production: Fanny Welz
• Communications: Frederike Jaedicke-Nolte

Sponsors, partners and participating institutions

Temporal Communities; Goethe-Institut; Museum of Ethnology and Museum of Asian Art – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin; Free University of Berlin; Catholic Academy in Berlin e. V.

Funded by the Senate Department for Culture and Social Cohesion

Mona Mirkamali’s participation is supported by: Centre for Cultural Technology (ZfK), Humboldt University of Berlin