THE LIFE OF MAESTRO NASROLLAH NASEHPOUR AND HIS CONTRIBUTIONS TO PERSIAN AND AZERBAIJANI MUSIC PEYMAN NASEHPOUR Undoubtedly, Maestro Nasrollah Nasehpour is the great and loyal heritage holder of the great master of Persian vocal music, Maestro Abdollah Davami. - Nasser Mojarrad, author, journalist, vocalist, and a student of Ostad Gholam-Hossein Banan Nasrollah Nasehpour was born in “Un¸ciMeydan" of Ardabil, Iran, on Thursday, October 24, 1940. His father \Aqa S¸@kur" (1902{1970), a shopkeeper, was an amateur garmon player and his mother \Huriy@ Xanım” (1920{1974), a housewife, was an amateur qaval player. Some relatives of Nasrollah's father had fine singing voices. In particular, his cousin, \Ma¸sadi Gudrat"˘ had an especially fine voice and was an amateur singer of some reputation. In those years in Ardabil, people were used to organizing private gatherings to play music. Also, in festive occasions and wedding ceremonies (in Azerbaijani, \bayramlar v@ toylar"), people were used to inviting musicians to play for them. In this way and because of Nasrollah's family music backgrounds, he was acquainted with Azerbaijani music either mu˘gamsor a¸siqlarmusic. Nasrollah Nasehpour received his secondary school diploma majoring in mathematics from Safavi High School in Ardabil, 1959. It is interesting to mention that Nasehpour was the last group of students that learned French as a foreign language in the school and after that most schools started teaching English as a foreign language. After graduating from the Safavi High School, he moved from Ardabil to Tehran, to get a job and/or continue his studies. Though he participated in the entrance examination of the Officers' Academy (in Persian D¯aneshkadeh-ye Afsari) and he was accepted as a student to study there, because of the strong disagreement and opposition of his mother, he left the Officers’ Academy and started seeking jobs and very soon he found a good one. He was employed in the Mercantile Bank of Iran and Holland on October 24, 1959, and worked there for about 7 years and 6 months. On May 10, 1967, Nasehpour asked to resign that bank and three days after that, his resignation was accepted. Later, and after an examination, Nasehpour was employed by Bank Melli Iran on June 27, 1967, and worked there till on November 9, 1989, the date he retired. Working in the Mercantile Bank of Iran and Holland was very beneficial for the young Nasehpour since he was encouraged to learn English. More importantly, Nasehpour was acquainted with Ostad Ali Akbar Shahnazi (1897{1985) since Shahnazi was one of the customers of this bank. The story Date: October 26, 2020. © Dr. Peyman Nasehpour. All Rights Reserved. This edition may be copied for personal use. Please kindly cite as: Nasehpour, P.: The life of Maestro Nasrollah Nasehpour and his contributions to Persian and Azerbaijani music, preprint, 2020. If there is any suggestion, comment, and/or question, please email the author at [email protected]. 1 2 P. NASEHPOUR Figure 1. Maestro Nasrollah Nasehpour. Photo Courtesy by Pooyan Nasehpour that how Nasehpour got to know Ostad Shahnazi is quite interesting. Since Nasehpour had such a good voice, he was used to singing for his bank colleagues, out of customer-service hours. One day, in early 1960s, Ostad Ali Akbar Shahnazi was passing the bank's office and Nasehpour was singing for his colleagues in the time outside the customer-service hours. Shahnazi noticed the singing coming from inside, so he knocked on the door in order to explain something to whoever had been singing. Nasehpour went outside to explain to that man that the bank was closed to customers. But Shahnazi wanted to say something else: he said that Nasehpour seemed to be talented in singing and encouraged the young Nasehpour to enroll in Ostad Mahmoud MAESTRO NASROLLAH NASEHPOUR 3 Figure 2. In the first row, the second student from the right is the young Nasehpour in Safavi High School Laboratory. Karimi's Vocal Radif Repertoire Class at the Free National Music Academy to learn classical Per- sian vocal music systematically. Ostad Shahnazi, himself, was a teacher of Persian tar in the same academy. Ostad Shahnazi had, also, wanted Nasehpour to participate in his own class and listen to the instrumental Radif pieces that he was teaching to the other students and help the young Nasehpour to be more familiar with the Persian classical music. Mahmoud Karimi (1927{1984) was a teacher of Persian vocal Radif repertoire. He was a student of Ostad Abdollah Davami (1891{1981) and Haj Agha Mohammad Irani Mojarrad (1872{1971) and trained many students. Nasehpour was Karimi's student for more than six years (but less than seven years) in the 1960s. Nasehpour was used to participating in the private musical gatherings among them those which were organized by Maestro Soleymankhan Amirghasemi (1884{1970). In Maestro Amirghasemi's gatherings, Nasehpour had the chance to get to know some famous musicians such as Saeed Hor- mozi (1897{1976), a great master of the setar and Ali-Asghar Bahari (1905{1995), a great master of Persian kamancheh. Later, Nasehpour became a close friend of Saeed Hormozi. In any serious music gathering that Nasehpour was attending, he had heard the name of the great master of Persian vocal music, Ostad Abdollah Davami. Therefore, in order to broaden his knowledge in Persian music Radif repertoire, he started searching for Ostad Abdollah Davami, 4 P. NASEHPOUR Official receipt for Figure 3. Official receipt for Nasehpour's tuition fee payment in 1965 Figure 4. Nasehpour's tuition fee payment in 1965 for Karimi's vocal class for Karimi's vocal class Figure 5. Maestro Nasrollah Nasehpour MAESTRO NASROLLAH NASEHPOUR 5 Figure 6. Hand-written Document by Maestro Abdollah Davami though it was not easy to find him since he was secluded. Finally, after much asking and searching, Nasehpour discovered that Maestro Abdollah Davami resided in Jam¯ar¯anarea of Northern Tehran. Then he went there to ask the great Maestro to teach him the secrets of the Persian vocal music Radif repertoire. When Nasehpour was going to visit the Maestro Davami, he provided five branches of rose to dedicate to him and in a very exciting meeting, he described his musical history and asked him to convey to him his knowledge and experience in music. Owing to the fact that he was busy working in the bank during the mornings, he asked the Maestro to teach him in the afternoons and he agreed to train him on Mondays afternoon. Nasehpour worked hard to learn the Radif and Tasnif under his supervision in a way that he was able to achieve the Maestro's full satisfaction. Therefore (similar to a university certificate) he wrote on a sheet of paper to confirm that Nasehpour had learned the master course of the Persian vocal music Radif repertoire completely. 6 P. NASEHPOUR Figure 7. Gramophone Disk No. 1: Vocals by Nasehpour and Tar by Lotfi Figure 8. The Book Musighi-ye Avazi-ye Iran by M.R. Lotfi [10] Now we translate what Maestro Davami writes about Nasehpour in his hand-written document inserted in Figure 6): \Since the notes of the vocals were not enough, I requested Mr. Nasrollah Nasehpour, which has been one of my students and learned the Radif completely, to sing the pieces in a way that everybody can use [and learn] them." The document, inserted in Figure 6, is a page of the book written by Mohammad Reza Lotfi on Persian vocal music. Two gramophone disks are attached to the book and in the disks, Nasehpour sings all the gushehs of Dastg¯ah-eShur and Lotfi accompanies him on tar. This book is bilingual, i.e. in Persian and French. • Listen to some of the gushehs of Dastgah-e-Shur by Nasehpour and Lotfi The story that how Nasehpour and Mohammad Reza Lotfi (1947{2014), a great master of the tar and setar, became friends together and then cooperated later is quite interesting. So interesting that in an interview with ILNA, Lotfi explains that. Using that interview, we bring the story as follows: When Lotfi was 18 he had moved from Gorgan to Tehran and was renting a flat with a friend in Arbab Jamshid Street in Tehran while he searched for a music school in order to learn Persian classical music systematically. On one of those days that he was a teenager (say still 18 or maybe 19), on a Tuesday afternoon, he was passing a house near his flat when that he heard someone singing accompanied by a Persian tar. Then he noticed that on the door or wall of the house was written \Honarest¯an-eShab¯aneh-ye Musighi" (in English Music Night School). He explains in the interview that he was so delighted to discover that music school; a music school which was very close to his flat. He entered the school, Lotfi says to the journalist. The man who was playing the tar asked him if he knew how to play any musical instrument. The tar player who asked this question and was accompanying the vocalist was Mr. Kamal Mirzaei (b. in Arak, 1939 and a student of Ali MAESTRO NASROLLAH NASEHPOUR 7 Figure 9. The Picture of Maestro Saeed Hormozi (1897{1976). Dedicated to Nasehpour by Hormozi Akbar Shahnazi). Then Lotfi had replied that he was able to play the tar and he played the tar for them. They had liked Lotfi’s tar, as he remembers during the interview, and the vocalist had encouraged Lotfi to enroll in the class of the great master of tar, i.e. Ostad Ali Akbar Shahnazi.