Sussan Deyhim

Sussan Deyhim
Song writer/composer
Principal country concerned : Column : Music

Sussan Deyhim is a composer, vocalist and performance artist who has been at the forefront of experimental music internationally for over two decades. Deyhim's music combines extended vocal techniques, digital processing, and the ancient mysticism of Middle Eastern music to create a deeply moving fusion of East and West.

Born in Tehran, Sussan Deyhim began her career dancing with Iran's Pars National Ballet company (performing weekly on Iranian national television), and then with Maurice Béjart's Ballet of the 20th Century. She moved to New York City in 1980, embarking on a multifaceted career encompassing music, theater, dance and media, and wide-ranging collaborations with leading artists from across the spectrum of contemporary art.

Deyhim has performed and recorded widely as a solo artist. Her one-woman show Vocodeliks, commissioned by the Whitney Museum of Art, led Billboard Magazine to describe Deyhim as "an overpowering presence...[whose] wordless incantations are amplified in harmonized layers and recycled into sampled loops, beckoning you into this virtual desert ritual" while the New York Times said that her "thrilling music...sounds in the ear long after you've left the show." Deyhim's solo recordings include Madman of God: Divine Love Songs of the Persian Sufi Masters, Shy Angels (with Bill Laswell) for the visionary label Crammed Discs and Turbulent. Other recordings include Majoun (for Sony Classical) and Desert Equations (released on Crammed Discs), both with the composer Richard Horowitz, a frequent collaborator. With composer and director Heiner Goebbels, Deyhim recorded Shadows (for ECM), based on writings of Edgar Allan Poe and Heiner Mueller, and composed and performed music for Deepak Chopra's A Gift of Love, with narration by Martin Sheen, Madonna, Goldie Hawn, and Debra Winger. She was also a featured soloist on Hal Wilner's tribute to Kurt Weill, Lost in the Stars.

Deyhim's numerous collaborations with the renowned visual artist/filmmaker Shirin Neshat have received critical acclaim, including the video Turbulent, which won the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennial. Their multimedia performance Logic of the Birds was based on Farid ud-Din Attar's mystical book of poetry written in the 12th Century; produced by the Lincoln Center Summer Festival, the Walker Art Center, the Kitchen, and Artangel, Logic toured internationally.

Deyhim's previous work in the theater includes directing, co-composing, choreographing and performing a series of collaborations with Horowitz including: AZAX/ATTRA: Desert Equations (a one-woman multimedia performance piece produced by La Mama in New York City which toured internationally including Ars Electronica in Austria, Morocco, Paris, Berlin and Hong Kong)(; The Ghost of Ibn Sabbah (presented by the Brooklyn Academy of Music/New Music America, Central Park's Summerstage, and NYC's Town Hall); and X-Isle/Isle-X, commissioned by the Hong Kong Cotemporary Dance Company (which subsequently toured in Japan and Indonesia). As a performer, Deyhim has appeared in many international theater productions, including works by Elizabeth Swados, Jean Claude Van Italie, and Lindsay Kemp.

Deyhim has appeared on numerous film soundtracks including The Last Temptation of Christ, directed by Martin Scorsese, with music by Peter Gabriel), Any Given Sunday, (directed by Oliver Stone; soundtrack by Richard Horowitz) and Unfaithful (directed by Adrian Lyne, with music by Jan Kaczmarek.)

Deyhim has collaborated with many of the most important figures in contemporary music, including Micky Hart, Branford Marsalis, Jerry Garcia, Jaron Lanier, Christian Marclay, Elliot Sharp, Arto Lindsay, Jan Mattox, Loren Rush and Winston Tong. She has also toured internationally with Bill Laswell, Bobby McFerrin, Ornette Coleman, Jah Wobble, Will Calhoun, Doug Wimbish, Adrian Sherwood, Keith Le Blanc and Skip McDonnald.

Deyhim has been a frequent participent at humanitarian events and benefits, including a performance at the gathering of the spiritual leaders of the world at the UN General Assembly in 2001; the first Gathering of Female Spiritual Leaders in Geneva at the United Nations, a 2004 performance for the Nobel peace prize winner Shirin Ebadi's award ceremony organized by Interfaith Center; the Royal Hope Gala, Royal Albert Hall, London, England with Placido Domingo, The Royal Ballet and many others, for medical aid to Iraqi children; and Witness, a benefit for human rights, sponsored by Peter Gabriel.

Deyhim's current projects include a multimedia opera Zarathustra's Mother (inspired by Friedrich Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra and sacred Zoroastrian texts), "Vorkestra", an all vocal album in collaboration with the visionary English producer Marius Devries, a collaboration with the Oscar winning Polish composer Jan Kazcmarek performing as a soloist, his orchestral film music with the USC Thornton Symphony and the Hollywood Film Chorale in Los Angeles at the Royce Hall in Jan 06 and a recent collaboration with composer Paul Haslinger (Tangerine Dream) and the legendary vocalist Nona Hendrix on the score for the anticipated "Showtime" new series "Sleeper Cell" which will air on Dec 05. (Soundtrack will be released on Miss Hendrix's label Rhythmbank in Jan 06)


DISCS

"DESERT EQUATIONS" CD
Sussan Deyhim and Richard Horowitz

Electro-Persian excursion by Iranian vocalist Sussan Deyhim and composer Richard Horowitz. A groundbreaking album, dominated by Ms. Deyhim's sublime voice surging from behind virtual dunes and electronic oasises.
(1) Ishtar (2) Got Away (3) I'm a Man (4) Tear (5) Azzax Attra (6) Jum Jum (7) Armour (8) Desert Equations

PRICE: $17.98 US (plus shipping/handling)




"SHY ANGELS" CD
Sussan Deyhim and Bill Laswell

"Shy Angels" is Bill Laswell's reinterpretation of the entire "Madman Of God" album, in which Sussan Deyhim presents her uniquely personal reading of divine love poems by Rumi, Saadi and other Sufi masters.
(1) The Candle and The Moth (2) Bade Saba (The Wind Of Saba) (3) Daylaman (Inextricable) (4) Meykhaneh (Wine Cave) (5) Navai (Savage Bird) (6) Negara (Mesmerized Mirror) (7) Gereyley (Nocturnal Dialogue) (8) Hamcho Farhad (Our Tears, Our Wine, Our Sight)

PRICE: $17.98 (plus shipping/handling)



"MADMAN OF GOD" CD
Divine Love Sounds of the Persian Sufi Masters

This collection of classical melodies from the Persian repotiore is based on the poetry of Rumi, Hafez and other Sufi writers from the 11th to the 19th cenruries. These pieces are as well known by my grandparents as they are by my own generation, and they represent the torch songs of classical Persian music.
(1) Gereley (2) The Candle and the Moth (3) Daylaman (4) Meykhanen (5) Bade Saba (6) Negara (7) Herncho Farhad (8) Navai

PRICE: $17.98 (plus shipping/handling)




"TURBULENT" CD
Sussan Deyhim Shirin Neshat

As a composer and performance artist, I;ve been looking for those rare occasions wherer a moment or situation freezes all thought processes and rhetorical rationalizations. All my soundscapes for Shirin Neshat have been romantic journeys into a deep sone, searching for universal, sonic metaphors to evoke language from her silent narrative abstractions; creating a space which travels beyond referential codes and transcends into the hyper-real, the surreal and the timeless
Ferver 1-4 Soliloquy 5-14 Rapture 15-22 Turbulent 23-24

PRICE: $22.98 (plus shipping/handling)



"MAJOUN" CD [OUT OF PRINT]

A stunning collaboration between Sussan and the great film composer Richard Horowitz, released on the Sony Classical label.
(1) Majoun (2) Kye Kye (Who is Who is) (3) Agonethi (Shadow Maps) (4) Whorl on the Mount of Moon (5) Coldest Day (6) Ipissima Verba (7) Murmur Mutanta (8) Botachine (Infinitely Curved)

Partners

  • Arterial network
  • Media, Sports and Entertainment Group (MSE)
  • Gens de la Caraïbe
  • Groupe 30 Afrique
  • Alliance Française VANUATU
  • PACIFIC ARTS ALLIANCE
  • FURTHER ARTS
  • Zimbabwe : Culture Fund Of Zimbabwe Trust
  • RDC : Groupe TACCEMS
  • Rwanda : Positive Production
  • Togo : Kadam Kadam
  • Niger : ONG Culture Art Humanité
  • Collectif 2004 Images
  • Africultures Burkina-Faso
  • Bénincultures / Editions Plurielles
  • Africiné
  • Afrilivres

With the support of