Ensemble Kaboul
Khaled Arman : biographie
Farshad SOLTANI was born in Iran but came to France to pursue studies in European classical music. He became a double bass player in the Paris Opera Orchestra and the Avignon Symphonic Orchestra. At the same time, (as far back as 1990), he has been going back to his Persian musical roots. Belonging to a large family of Iranian musicians, he plays kamanjah and has numerous works featuring « between Orient and Occident », The Lyon National Orchestra, the Avignon Théâtre du Balcon and the cellist Yo-Yo Ma collaborated with him on projects such as La Route de la Soie (The Silk Road) and La Conférence des Oiseaux (The Conference of the Birds).
He has been a member of the Ensemble Kaboul since 2016.
Meri Vardanyan was born in Armenia in 1980. She started studying the Kanun at the age of seven. She graduated in Kanun and conducting at the Erevan Conservatoire and became soloist with the Ochagan Ensemble, the State Ensemble for traditional musics, specializing in medieval Armenian music. She has appeared in numerous festivals with the Gurdjieff Folk Instruments Ensemble.
In 2009, she settled in Lyon where she obtained a Master's degree in musicology and continued her performing career.
She has been a member of the Ensemble Kaboul since 2012.
Siar Hachemi was born in Kaboul in 1981. He started learning the tabla at the age of four under Wali Mohammad, an Afghan Master. When the family moved to Hambourg when he was nine years old, Siar carried on his studies in Germany and in India under Zakir Hussain, Anindo Chaterjee et Kumar Bose. He has accompanied several Afghan musician of the diaspora but he is also asked to play with Indian musicians such as Hariprasat Chaurasia.
In the Ensemble Kaboul , Siar Hachemi plays the tabla and all the Afghan and traditional Iranian percussion instruments such as the zirbaghali, the dolak and the daf.
Mashal Arman is the Ensemble Kaboul 's singer. Like her brother, Marshal also benefited from her music education within her family and was initiated into Persian singing by her father Hossein Arman, a well known Afghan singer, who handed down his repertoire as well as the phrasing and the art of ornamenting the music.
Born in Kaboul, Mashal has been living in Geneva since she is nine. A Mezzo soprano, she studied at the Geneva's Conservatoir, at the Lausanne Haute Ecole and with David Jones in New-York. Since then, she has enjoyed a lyrical solo career (Geneva's Grand Théâtre, Lausanne's Opera) and has sung with a number of groups (Lausanne's Vocal Ensemble, Canticum Novum, Gli Angeli) and in many international festivals with the Ensemble Kaboul.
KHALED ARMAN
