On December 11, Thomas Giles will premiere fabric of sorrow by composer Golnaz Shariatzadeh alongside other works by members of the Iranian Female Composers Association. This was the perfect opportunity for me to have a conversation with Golnaz, who ignited the conception of this program, about her artistic practice, the program itself, and how it all intersects with identity and the women life freedom movement.  

Niloufar Nourbakhsh: Thank you so much for your time. I have known you for a very long time, but I have just realized that I don’t know much about you. I'm really curious to know how you got interested in music and then subsequently composition?

Golnaz Shariatzadeh: So I started playing violin when I was very young—I was seven—and I always wanted to become a violin virtuoso. But then I moved here, and that's the reason I moved here; for performance,  and then I kind of lost interest in performance. When I moved here, I went to Brooklyn College for performance and I just got very intrigued by the music scene here, and I kind of started writing intuitively. I just had this urge to create rather than perform. 

Then, I transferred to Mills College, and that was a very beautiful space to be in. Things were just happening, like, people were just creating. So, I just started improvising and then I wanted to transcribe that to meet composition, and that’s how it started to develop. 

Niloufar: It's so interesting to me because I think you moved here at a very early age? 

Golnaz: I moved here when I was 17.

Niloufar: Wow, I mean that's also when I moved here, I was 18. I moved here for college, but it was a really wild thing to do. Right? And at that time, thinking that I’m moving to the US wasn't a huge deal. I was really excited about it, but now thinking back, I’m shocked by that decision. Tell me about that time for you. 

Golnaz: Yes, exactly, I was super excited. It felt so liberating to leave. And, at that time, I had no fear, no anxiety at all. But now looking back, as you said, I find it really crazy. And it was probably the biggest thing that happened in my life; the biggest change, and I wasn't ever afraid, and it just happened. It was a big transition, and now if I think about moving to another city, [she starts laughing] It’s a crazy transition, I’ll be thinking: what am I going to do? 

Niloufar: Yes, it's incredible. And I guess, along the same lines on immigration, when I think about identity, as you know, I've been outside of Iran for 13 years now; but somehow being Iranian is still such a fundamental part of who I am. I wonder about how you look at that identity and if it changes over time? This dichotomy of having these two worlds at the same time, how do you grapple with it, and also what does it mean to you as an artist?

Golnaz: Hmm, yeah, I've been thinking about that a lot actually as I grow older. And, I think it's very strong to me, the roots that I feel like I have to Iran, and I think the more years passed by since I moved out, the stronger I feel those roots. For a lot of artists and a lot of people, immigration is a kind of in-between place. Your home is going to be anywhere, but there is still the core of it, which gets stronger for me. And I think it shows up in almost all of my works in different ways. I explored it more transparently or more directly, in one of my pieces called animal, which is about this creature that doesn't know who it is, and it keeps growing. That's how I think of myself—it's an analogy that I have these roots or limbs and wherever I go, new limbs are going to grow, but the first ones, the roots, which grew in Iran, keep getting stronger as they move further away. 

Niloufar: Your piece animal is accompanied by animation, which you have created. You're not only a wonderful composer, but you're also a studio artist, and you create animations from your own drawings. How did that come about? Was that something you always did? Was it challenging to bring it into your compositional voice? How do they speak to one another?

Golnaz: Yeah, I started drawing after I moved here because it was an outlet for me. It was meditative, but then it grew bigger. I always thought there were two separate things; it was very conflicting for me because I loved them both so much, but I realized that the music was very visual to me because I was always interested in creating landscapes [in music], and gradually I got very interested in fiction and story, and myths, and I figured that they can kind of work together. My music adds dimension to the animation and the animation brings layers to the music. 

Niloufar: That’s so wonderful, and the piece that we will hear at National Sawdust, fabric of sorrow, is also with animation and it's also related to Iran. Could you tell us a little bit about the piece? 

Golnaz: So, after last year, after the protests in response to the killing of Mahsa Amini in 2022, it was an extremely difficult and isolating time. And I had all these emotions that just came out of me, like anger, anxiety, and I just found out that it’s a bit liberating to just express an aspect of the emotions in the work; and the piece grew naturally like that. It is a fiction to me—it is, of course, connected to the reality of what happened [in Iran in 2022], but then I also like to add fiction or stories to it, like a dream, and it can shape things. This way it makes me a little bit more distant from the horrible reality. Even though the work is very heavy and dark, it became an outlet of expression for me.

Niloufar: As you mentioned, fabric of sorrow is related to the women life freedom uprising. Can you describe the visual imagery of the piece?

Golnaz: The idea is about a space or an architecture that collects people's pains and sorrows and returns strength back to people in exchange. It's an architecture that is fluid and in flex, and as the pain is pouring inside of it, it creates spaces that are magical, and that's the only way people can get more strength. It's an in-between place, but it also shows memories and dreams and aspects of what happened. 

Niloufar: What does woman life freedom mean to you, and how do you see its future?

Golnaz: I think woman life freedom was a significant feminist movement, really. And I'm still just like, [pause] it's otherworldly, just with regards to [people’s] courage and what happened. It’s bigger than my perception, and I think it was a catalyst for change, and the change is happening.

It was a necessity. So, I see it as a very big feminist movement in the world. 

Niloufar: I totally agree with you that it's a huge thing, not just in Iran, but it's part of the whole world. And I think a lot of people don't understand that. I have a really hard time explaining why this [movement] matters to people living in the United States. Why does this movement matter to people living anywhere else in the world. I can't quite find the right words to describe why it is what I think it is. Do you have a way to explain it? 

Golnaz: Yes, exactly. I don't think I can explain that either. But I see it more as a philosophical thing that happened. I think, because people in the other parts of the world have not lived in the dictatorship that is in Iran, they really don't know what women are dealing with in Iran. So, it needs a tremendous leap for people to understand that I, [as a woman], could go out and I might just die. Since people have not lived it, it’s difficult for them to understand how significant this movement is. 

Niloufar: How do you see this movement in the future? How is it going to live on? 

Golnaz: Strength! I think that we saw strength in people, and it’s growing by giving strength to other people. Despite how horrible and painful it can be, people are no longer tolerating it. The movement is like a mind opener. It made me stronger; it made my friends stronger; to know that we are capable of this; to say NO. It’s such a beautiful thing because it has started to grow.

Fabric of Sorrow will be premiered at National Sawdust on December 11 alongside other solo works by members of the Iranian Female Composers association, performed and curated by Thomas Giles.

About Niloufar Nourbakhsh

Described as “stark” by WNPR and “darkly lyrical” by the New York Times, a winner of 2022 Beth Morrison Projects Next Generation competition, an awardee of National Sawdust’s Second International Hildegard Commission, and a 2019 recipient of Opera America’s Discovery Grant, Niloufar Nourbakhsh’s music has been performed at numerous festivals and venues including Ojai Festival, Mostly Mozart at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, and Direct Current Festival at the Kennedy Center. A founding member and co-artistic director of Iranian Female Composers Association, Nourbakhsh is a strong advocate of music education and equal opportunities. She currently teaches theory and composition at Longy School of Music of Bard College and Berklee College of Music. Niloufar holds a doctorate degree from Stony Brook University and regularly performs with her Ensemble Decipher.