Ashkan Behzadi

Ballads: Oblique

2025

solo violin with voice, spoken word (acoustic), 24'

Ballads: Oblique by Ashkan Behzadi is a strikingly raw exploration of home and displacement. Interwoven with new poetry from Taher Adel which is based on Arabic translations for the word "home", Ballads: Oblique imagines music as though written by Palestinian children who have been deprived of their lives, their futures and their identities during the war in Gaza. It creates a sound world of fragmentation and renewal, where what is obscured becomes as resonant as what is spoken.

Premiered at hcmf//, Huddersfield on 18th November 2025

Programme note

Released in November 2025 by Coviello Contemporary / Deutschlandfunk

Commissioned with generous support from Canada Council for the Arts

Ballads: Oblique

Yesterday was a very special day. Taher Adel and I met for the first time to rehearse and bring the music and poetry of Ashkan Behzadi’s Ballads: Oblique together. For this commission (which is part of a set of new works for my current solo project), I paired Ashkan with Taher, a poet and spoken word artist who wrote his series Arabic Names for Home for us. The piece is a conversation between the music and Taher’s poetry, and I am absolutely delighted that Taher will join me

Nov 15, 20242 min read