Commissioned by Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival 2014
 
Notes:
"Shab o Meh" is about that “night" when I woke up in the cold of a desert night in the outskirts of Tehran with my clothes torn off, my wallet and my cellphone taken for further examination, my face swollen up while being unable to open my eyes for the pepper sprayed in my nose and in my mouth. A handheld gun was held and shot inside my mouth; once, twice…It was not loaded. “Remember the taste of the gun barrel!”.
The piece is about that life-changing experience itself and not about where and by whom and even why it did happen. I stood in the middle of a fully dark desert looking at Tehran lights which were more of a glare in my eyes and I realized that this city has changed me but I still love my hometown.
In Soviet Union, citizens used to disappear in night and fog when they would be found somewhere far away. I was lost in night and fog and I found myself somewhere far away from where I was born, raised and felt safe at.