Esfand – Untitled (2024)

Esfand is a collaboration between Rouzbeh Esfandarmaz and Pat Stewart aiming to dissolve the boundaries between Iranian folk music and electronic dance music. In a week long residency they continued a research on the fusion of electronic music and Iranian folk music in their purest forms, transcending genre limitations. The performance at the end of the residency finds an answer in ‘Osmose’, an instrument created by Expressive E.

Rouzbeh Esfandarmaz is a highly skilled musician. A talented woodwind player and improviser with a deep understanding of western and Iranian music. He is also a skilled composer and music producer, constantly pushing the boundaries of traditional music with his innovative ideas.

In 2020, after completing his Master’s degree in Art of Sound in Royal Conservatory of The Hague, he formed the experimental electronic duo Esfand with Pat Stewart. The duo blends Iranian folk music with electronic music and published their debut album, Héle, in March 2021. The album showcases their unique blend of traditional and contemporary styles.

On the 1st of February Esfand presented a first iteration of the new concert. Not a seated concert, but rather an infectious rhythms that naturally invited one to dance.

House Guests is a program in which The Grey Space invites transdisciplinary makers who actively seek collaborations with other knowledge domains and are willing to share their artistic process and test a prototype of a project with an audience. The program facilitates the interaction between a work, the space and the audience, often operating in between a black box and white cube. Each House Guest has a week-long mini-residency, culminating in a public event.

This edition of House Guests is supported by the municipality of The Hague and the Creative Industries Fund NL.