German quartet of multilingual musicians thrills audience with Persian poetry renditions

Mobile phone screens illuminated in the dark and rather cool auditorium of the Arts Council as Cymin Samawatie, the vocalist of the German jazz ensemble Cyminology, rendered Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s poem “Aaj ki raat saaz-e-dard na cheD” on the breezy night on Thursday.

The venue was almost filled to capacity to listen to the multi-cultural quartet, including Benedikt Jahnel on piano, Ketan Bhatti on drums and Ralf Schwarz on double bass, who were on their first tour of Pakistan on the invitation of the Goethe Institut.

Cymin had worn a shimmering blue jumpsuit. Her body swayed in confidence as she pitched her first note following a piano intro. Without having knowledge of Urdu, she was still able to mesmerise the audience by her melodic voice especially when she sang the lines, “Dukh se bharpur din tamam hue, Aur kal ki khabar kise malum”.

“I had a teacher [Uzma] who would make me understand the meaning of each word and I would try to give them melody,” she explained to The News the process of composing Faiz’s poem. “Many of the words were similar to Farsi [Persian; her mother tongue] so it helped.”

The quartet say their compositions are inspired by minimalism and impressionism. They try to express the post-migrant European culture through their chamberesque contemporary music and Persian poetry by greats such as Rumi, Khayyam and Hafez.

The four musicians hail from different countries as Cymin has Iranian background, Benedikt was born in France, Ketan is from New Delhi and Ralf is German. What puts them together is their passion for music. They all met in Berlin and formed the group in 2002 which so far has produced five albums.

They performed five songs at the event, one in Urdu and the remaining in Persian. The last rendition was of verses by Iranian poet Forough Farrokhzad, famous for her feminist voice. She was married off at the age of 16 and bore a son, a year later, but was not allowed to meet him after her divorce. Farrokhzad died young at 32.