Heart of Afghanistan at Summer for the City

Hearst Plaza, Lincoln Center, NYC
July 30th, 2022
As part of its Summer for the City series, Lincoln Center (NYC) presented a free concert in Hearst Plaza: The Heart of Afghanistan. The group consisted of four men: Ahmad Fanoos on vocals & harmonium; his two sons Elham (who fronted the band) on piano and Mehran on violin; and Hamid Habibzada on tabla.

The Heart of Afghanistan’s repertoire explores Afghan culture from pre-Buddhist times through the Sufi to contemporary pop, although this concert offered one song that was Persian. The concert opened with a short monosyllable vocal rift unlike anything we heard later. We were then introduced to an extraordinary, unique musical genre. Afghan music seems always to catch us off-guard, like 5/4 time, and sometimes changes rhythms mid-song like Arabic music.

But this is certainly not Arabic music. Its constituent instruments seemed to be playing different genres of music that complement each other without melting together, as if it had deconstructed itself. The piano reminded me of Ravel impressionism, while the drums had a middle eastern bounce.

The violin had a sustained line. And behind it all, the harmonium sounded like the drone that underlies Hindu music. It was terrific.

The first song was easy, designed for a specific moment in an Afghan wedding. The second was about the spring and flowers. Interestingly, it was jumpy but not gay – not a mood we associate with spring.

The third song, we were told, was sung in a different linguistic dialect. It had a lunging lead that seemed to be driven by testosterone. The next was the Persian song, a New Year’s song. The next had a more western sound without losing its exoticism.

The final song, instrumental, was familiar. Mary Hopkin had a pop hit with it in the 1980s with insipid lyrics (“Those were the days, my friend — We thought they’d never end”). However, the song was written by a Russian composer, Boris Fomin, in the 1920s, with the title Dorogoy Dalnoyu (On the Long Road). Theodor Bikel and Geula Gill recorded it in the 1960s, in Russian. It’s a terrific tune, but its arrangement lacked the exotic complexity of the earlier songs, and it sounded too familiar.

Mr. Fanoos’ singing was highly melismatic, and his deep voice handled the trills and turns — and these did sound Arabic — effortlessly, with one cadenza after another. I’ve never heard a male pop singer with this skill.

We know that the modes of music in the concert were varied because we were told at one point that the song was in the same mode and scale as the previous two songs. But no other education as offered regarding the music beyond the brief introductions. Lincoln Center never supplies documentation for these concerts that have so many teaching opportunities.

Still — what a rewarding hour this was! Congratulations to Heart of Afghanistan. They introduced me to something marvelous