Shajarian to Present New Instruments in France

Veteran Iranian vocalist Mohammad-Reza Shajarian is set to present his newly designed instruments at a music congress in France.
Shajarian will introduce his Tondar and Sorahi at the fifth edition of the Interdisciplinary Musicology Congress, which will be held on the theme of “Music and Its Instruments” from Oct. 26 to 29 in Paris.



Sorahi has a neck similar to that of violin alto and its saddle and strings resemble that of a violin. It can cover the sound range produced by soprano, alto, bass and contra bass instruments.

The string instrument has a skin under the saddle, which can be changed in less than two minutes, changing the color and sound of the instrument.

Tondar or baas Santour is another new instrument inspired by the traditional string Persian instrument Santour.

The 69-year-old vocalist has also designed two other string instruments called Saghar and Kereshmeh, which he unveiled in Tehran in April.

The CIM09 is organized by the Universite Pierre et Marie Curie, Universite Paris Sorbonne-Paris IV, the City of Musique and the Musee du Quai Branly, in collaboration with the French Society of Acoustics.