Gord Grdina's Qalandar

Gordon Grdina’s Qalandar are a contemporary Persian ensemble that strike a balance between tradition and innovation.

The ensemble (featuring Ali Razmi on vcocals, Hamin Honari on tombak and daf, Kenton Loewen on drums, Gordon Grdina on oud, and Hidayat Honari on tar) combines Arabic, Persian music and free improvisation with traditional and contemporary Persian pieces. The compositional duties are shared among the ensemble members creating pieces that consider each of the musician’s varied histories while honouring a unified group aesthetic. The ensemble developed out of a weekly traditional Persian gig shared among friends. The group helped to open the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto and has played many times for CBC, Coastal Jazz and Blues Society and VICO.

This concert will pay tribute to founding member, Kamanche player, father, friend, and artist Reza Honari. After the live set, we invite you to enjoy the acclaimed comedy Universal Language.

Gordon Grdina — Oud
Ali Razmi Setar — Vocals
Hidayat Honari — Tar
Hamin Honari — Tombak and Daf
Kenton Loewen — Drums

About Universal Language: One of oddest, funniest, freshest movies of the year, Universal Language reimagines Winnipeg as a Farsi-speaking outpost of Iran. Matthew Rankin pays tribute to the cinema of Abbas Kiarostami and Jafar Panahi though his deadpan framing of a beige and concrete, snowswept urban landscape, where two young girls attempt to liberate a frozen hundred dollar bill from the ice, while sightseekers drift between pet cemeteries and empty shopping malls, and a man named Matthew Rankin (played by Matthew Rankin) returns home to visit his ailing mother.

Matthew Rankin’s film is a wildly creative exercise in prairie surrealism that offers a hopeful alternative vision to the anxious political moment.

Liam Lacey, Original Cin

While the film is laugh-out-loud funny — literally — it is also, by the end, as the wandering characters are finally brought together, ineffably sad and delicate.

Alison Gillmor, Winnipeg Free Press

Universal Language is a magnificent film, one that feels warm and familiar even as we realize just how startlingly original it is.

Bilge Eberi, New York Magazine

Co-Presented with