Maestro Hamid Motebassem Performs In Toronto After 10 Years

Internationally acclaimed Iranian musician, Maestro Hamid Motebassem (Holland), performs with the George Crotty Trio on May 30 at the Small World Centre as part of the Experimental Link Series, and with Damsaz Ensemble on May 31 at Agricola Church. Presented by Link Music Lab, both shows display Motebassem's talent as a composer of Persian classical music and as a stunning improviser on tar and setar.

Hamid Motebassem's Persian classical compositions will serve as the basis for a jazz-forward musical exploration at the Experimental Link show with George Crotty on cello, and award-winners Jonathan Chapman on bass and Dhaivat Jani on percussion. The Toronto-based trio led by Canadian cellist, composer and improviser, George Crotty, is known for cross-cultural interplay drawing on modal jazz, Indian raga and Arabic maqam. Experimental Link Series aims to contemplate the Persian-Canadian experience by reinvigorating, re-exploring and re-imagining Persian traditional music within contemporary and cosmopolitan Toronto by inviting different musicians from the diaspora to collaborate.

Damsaz Ensemble honours the ongoing and extended musical collaboration of Hamid Motebassem with Samira Golbaz, a talented setar and tar player, and his partner. Motebassem and Golbaz will perform with Montreal-based percussionist Ziya Tabassian to present exceptional traditional music from Iran, demonstrating their synergies as world-class performers. "Damsaz" means familiar, harmonious or sharing the same path. The duo released a new single, "Ava-ye Roshanai", and the album Damsaz Duo in 2020.

With over 40 years of experience, Hamid Motebassem has performed thousands of concerts worldwide. He has numerous recordings, including an album with Shahram Nazeri and a new solo album Radif-e Afshari -Setar. He founded the Society of Tar and Setar, Dastan Ensemble, Ensemble Chakavak, Mezrab, Pardis and Damsaz Ensemble. Born in Mashhad, Iran, he was raised in a musical family where his first teacher was his father, Ali Motebassem, who played the tar. Subsequent teachers included the masters Habiballah Salehi, Zeydallah Toloie, Houshang Zarif, Hossein Alizadeh and Mohammad Reza Lotfi. Motebassem studied at the Tehran School of Art and the Conservatory of Persian Music.

About Link Music Lab

Link Music Lab is a Toronto-based artist collective whose mandate is to create top-quality multicultural concert productions and innovative recording collaborations. Founded in 2009 by Mahmood "Moudy" Schricker, Link Music Lab employs an ethnomusicological approach to developing concert, recording and artist marketing initiatives. As a premier presenter of a diverse range of Persian music from classical to electronic to fusion, Link Music Lab aims beyond its foundations in Persian music and the cliche of the "Toronto mosaic" to facilitate collaborations that cross-pollinate various cultures in entirely new artistic contexts.