Irish and Persian music fuse for a rich Tapestry
Groove Tube with Jimi McDonnell – [email protected]
Blending Irish and Persian music, Navá come to the Black Gate Cultural Centre in Galway City on Sunday, October 14. The band are brothers Shahab and Shayan Coohe, Niall Hughes and Paddy Kiernan and they’ve been playing as Navá since 2016.
Shahab plays the santoor, which is a trapezoid-shaped instrument that usually has 72 strings. Shayan plays tombak percussion and the tar, which is a plucked-string instrument. Paddy plays banjo, and Niall completes the line-up with bass and guitar.
The band first played together at an open-mic night in Dublin, and Niall recalls hearing Shahab and Shayan playing for the first time.
“A friend of ours called Simon Guy, who’s a mandolin player, had met the lads,” Niall says. “He told us we had to see these Iranian guys play, that they were just unbelievable. They were playing this open-mic night every Monday, so we went in and had a pint with them. We got up on stage, and I think we played an Irish tune and jammed on some Iranian piece.”
The four lads decided to meet up again, not realising that a new project was about to get off the ground.
“Paddy teaches in Walton’s music school in Dublin, and he booked a room for us,” Niall says. “We met up there, but I don’t think we’d said at that point we were going to form something. It was quite informal. But then the rehearsals worked, and we decided we’d form properly and start writing some music.”
Their music is a gentle fusion which brings together the diverse musical backgrounds of its members. They play a mix of originals and traditional compositions, which can be heard on their debut album Tapestry.
“Paddy is a prolific writer and he’d often bring a tune,” Niall explains of how Navá work. “The lads might bring an original melody, or else they’d bring a traditional Iranian piece that they’ve had in their head for most of their lives. They might take a little excerpt, but something small is brought and then it’s a team effort to bring it to the next stage.”
When it came to recording their album, the members of Navá had a chat about what they wanted to achieve.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
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