“Veiled” performed by Karen Ouzounian

Next month marks the official centennial of the birth of Chou Wen-Chung, who left us only four years ago. Along with his remarkable but woefully underrecognized oeuvre, his legacy extends to his influence on several generations of Chinese composers and performers he mentored over a long, productive career. Many of them, like Chou Wen-Chung, settled in the U.S., where they have explored innovative ways of synthesizing various aspects of Chinese culture with currents in contemporary Western music.

Framing this morning’s focus on that legacy is music representing two generations of Iranian artists. We begin with Niloufar Nourbakhsh, a young composer and pianist born in Karaj and now based in the U.S. A founding member of the Iranian Female Composers Association, she wrote Veiled in response to the Iranian protests in 2017. Nourbakhsh points to the anger she carries within as a result of “growing up in a country that actively veils women’s presence through compulsory hijab or banning solo female singers from pursuing a professional career.” The cello’s eloquence, pitched high in the register, mixes with an electronically processed track of a woman singing, transforming her anger “into a collective force that is both beautiful and resilient.” She describes Veiled as a “tribute to the Iranian women who made such transformations possible.”