Name: Global Consortium
Start: 2025-10-17T19:30:00-05:00
Location: Opus Concert Café

Red Cedar Chamber Music’s Directors and core ensemble, violinist Miera Kim and cellist Carey Bostian, will be joined by clarinetist Jean-François Charles and setar player Ramin Roshandel to present Global Consortium, a program of newly commissioned works composed by the guest artists.
Each guest artist has been commissioned by Red Cedar to create a new work for this program. Roshandel has composed Coping Mechanisms, a multi-movement work that is an homage to the great Persian musical tradition that he grew up in and explores the relationship between good and evil. Yalda is the Persian name for the winter solstice, or the longest night of the year. In Persian culture, Yalda is when light (good) overcomes dark (evil).
Charles has composed The Blues and the Material Truth, a suite of five blues, each inspired by a different aspect of his experience ranging from a French alpine flower to the Hunchback of Notre Dame. Charles says, “Initiation Blues is about coming of age; the Quasimodo Blues and Esmeralda Blues touch on the topics of exclusion, love and survival: they are echoes of my work on the soundtrack to the 1923 movie The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Candide Blues is an homage to Grant Wood, who, after his European travels, decided that Iowa was the best place to develop his personal style. Finally, Plantation Earth is an homage to Rahsaan Roland Kirk, an incredible artist whose each breath was about music. Overall, the music fits in the tradition of the Third Stream, creating hybrids of classical and jazz idioms. Here, these two strands meet in a small chamber music ensemble, with the added dimension of the setar and improvisation in the Persian classical music tradition.” Jean-François Charles
As Jamshid Jam, Roshandel and Charles have developed a unique sound combining the traditions of Persian classical music and live electronic music. They have been creating this new shared musical language since their first concert in December 2019. They have been invited to perform in Chicago, Iowa City, Ames, Omaha, New-York City, Warrensburg, Tucson. Their debut album, Jamshid Jam (2022), is available on streaming platforms and CD. www.jamshidjam.com
For the core ensemble, this project is part of an ongoing effort to learn about different musical traditions and styles. From our recent three-year commissioning project of duos inspired by folk music from around the world to last spring’s Crossover Quartet program, the ensemble is committed to bring the best in music from around the world to Red Cedar audiences.
Nine performances of Global Consortium will begin Tuesday September 23 at the Marion Uptown Artway and culminate with the Voxman Recital Hall performance on October 19.
This series of concerts is made possible by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Iowa Arts Council (which exists within the Iowa Economic Development Authority), the Greater Cedar Rapids Community Foundation, Aegon Transamerica Foundation, the McIntyre Foundation, the Grandon Foundation, the Giacoletto Foundation, the City of Marion, Hills Bank, and Farmers State Bank. Special thanks to Artist Sponsor ImOn Communications.