Zafron Road Project - the musicians Cieavash Arean and Faraz Shahbazi are co-collaborators who have taken and given much joy in performing Persian dastgah and Maqam music in Australia. They are frequent guests at festivals and cultural events. Louise King is a cellist with a rare sense of beauty and the dramatic who has performed with major orchestras in Britain, Cairo, Hong Kong and Australia. She is in high demand as a recitalist and chamber musician. Louise Denson is an award winning jazz pianist and composer and is head of Jazz at the Queensland Conservatorium. She currently performs with her Latin music ensemble LDG. Andrew Lesnewski is a versatile and dedicated double bassist with eclectic interests and has performed with some of Australia’s finest musicians. Giuseppe Vizzone has been a collaborator with me on four albums. He has a strong sense of time and the timely, which has seen him contribute to dozens of recordings and projects. I am sincerely grateful to each of the musicians who have given so much of themselves in this collaboration. Their musical wisdom and friendship have been highly valued. My heartfelt thanks goes also to Dr. Michael Whiticker for his valued contributions during the making of this recording. Produced by Michael Knopf and Michael Whiticker Recorded and Mixed at The Sound Space by Michael Whiticker April- November 2010 www.soundspace.com.au Michael’s music can be downloaded from www.michaelknopf.com or from the following mp3 download websites amazon.com itunes napster emusic Michael Knopf - 7- String Classical, 12 string & Resonator Guitars,Vocals Cieavash Arean - Tar, Kamancheh, & Ney Faraz Shahbazi - Vocals, Daf, & Tombuk Giuseppe Vizzone - Drums & Hang drum Andrew Lesnewski -Double Bass Louise Denson - Keyboards Louise King - Cello Azadeh Knopf- Vocals (Neda) I have been much occupied with expoloring diverse musical concepts in many genres in my work. ZRP is no exception, exploring musical contrasts and commonalities inherent in four distinct genres; Persian traditional and classical music, Jazz, Flamenco and Western Art practices. I sense that the musics of Central Asia, the Middle-East, southern Europe and North Africa share a spiritual ancestor. Though there was no saffron road in these areas, I hear variations on a theme in their approaches to nuance and idea, as if the path each had taken had had a common origin. Even Jazz with its roots in Africa seems to me to refer back to some of the arab modes through its “blue notes”. ZRP takes these perceptions as its raison d'être. It seeks to interweave the varied strands of these and Western musics into a new aesthetic entity. This music was written for the musicians who perform here. Each of us has relished the expansion of our musical frontiers through the cross-genre experience and with the eclectic personal and professional interaction of our membership. The music reflects this, and in my thinking, works as an vehicle for the expression of the idea that human diversity is not a source of division, but a fountain of concord: for it is only through diversity that the real power of human interaction shines.