Reflections on Music and Post-Orientalism
Idin Samimi Mofakham – November 2024, Oslo
A Personal Starting Point
My journey as a composer has always balanced inheritance and innovation. I was immersed in Iranian music and captivated by the Radif's complex forms and ornamentation. However, as I grew artistically, I questioned its veneration as a rigid, untouchable artefact. Treated almost like scripture—complete and final—the Radif felt increasingly disconnected from the evolving needs of contemporary music.
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Reflections on Music and Post-Orientalism
Idin Samimi Mofakham – November 2024, Oslo
A Personal Starting Point
My journey as a composer has always balanced inheritance and innovation. I was immersed in Iranian music and captivated by the Radif's complex forms and ornamentation. However, as I grew artistically, I questioned its veneration as a rigid, untouchable artefact. Treated almost like scripture—complete and final—the Radif felt increasingly disconnected from the evolving needs of contemporary music.
Discovering Edward Said's Orientalism was transformative. It revealed how cultural representations are often skewed, with Western traditions framing "Eastern" music through a lens of exoticism, stripping it of complexity. Yet, I found Said's critique incomplete—it focused on external distortions but did not address the internal stagnation of Eastern traditions.
Ehsan Saboohi's concept of Post-Orientalism resonated deeply with me. Saboohi, who coined the term Post-Orientalism music, calls for challenging both Western stereotypes and the ossification of our own traditions. For me, Post-Orientalism is more than a critique; it is a call to allow Iranian music to evolve, transforming it into a living, dynamic language.
What is Post-Orientalism?
At its core, Post-Orientalism dismantles the binaries that have long dominated cultural discourse. Ehsan Saboohi's vision embraces untempered intervals to create compositions defying Western conventions and Eastern dogma. Rather than rejecting the Radif outright, he reimagines it as raw material for new creative possibilities.
For me, Post-Orientalism represents an act of defiance against the reduction of Iranian music to exotic motifs and the rigid guardianship that inhibits innovation. While aligned with Saboohi's aesthetic goals, my approach differs. I prefer to stretch and reshape traditional structures, allowing patterns to emerge in unexpected ways. The Radif, to me, is a labyrinth—not a map to follow but a space to explore.
This perspective underpins my compositions, where ancient tuning systems and untempered intervals do not replicate history but reimagine it as a living, evolving presence.
Post-Orientalism is not about opposing "East versus West." It is about reclaiming agency, complexity, and nuance in translating our thoughts through sound.
Edward Said's Influence and its Limits
Edward Said's Orientalism exposed how colonial powers constructed "the Orient" as a mirror of their supremacy, reducing rich traditions to simplistic caricatures. However, his work primarily critiques distortion, offering less guidance on creatively reimagining these traditions from within.
Post-Orientalism builds on Said's critique but moves beyond it, shifting from critique to creation. It insists that our music does not need to exist in opposition to Western paradigms but can stand independently, rooted in history yet unbound by it. By embracing the fluidity and hybridity of cultural identities, Post-Orientalism enables us to engage with tradition and modernity simultaneously.
Critics like James Clifford and the Subaltern Studies collective emphasize the need to move beyond Said's binary framing of "East versus West." Such dichotomies risk essentializing both, ignoring the interconnectedness of cultural exchange.
This interconnectedness defines my practice. Iranian music, shaped by centuries of dialogue with the Arab world, Central Asia, India, and even the West, cannot be confined to a single narrative. My compositions, such as Crystallum, Gâ’hân, and Eternal Chasms, draw on ancient Persian tuning systems as dynamic nodes within a broader network of musical thought. For me, Post-Orientalism is not static but a philosophy of movement—culture as a river to navigate, not a fortress to defend.
Ehsan Saboohi's Post-Orientalism critiques the stasis in Iranian music by integrating block structures, untempered intervals, and altered soundscapes. His work liberates Iranian music from both the constraints of the Radif and the reductive gaze of Orientalism.
While I admire Saboohi's critique, my approach diverges in one key respect: where he often seeks to dismantle, I aim to reconstruct. The Radif, despite its rigidity, holds untapped possibilities. I create music that honours and transcends its origins by delving into its deeper structures and interplay between fixed and improvisational forms.
Though our artistic voices differ, Saboohi and I share the goal of freeing Iranian music from the dual shackles of exoticism and orthodoxy.
Toward a Unified Vision
Ultimately, Post-Orientalism is not a single ideology but a conversation—a space where multiple voices coexist. For me, it bridges past and present, East and West, tradition and innovation. It is a call to embrace complexity and reject binaries that constrain art.
In my work, Post-Orientalism means treating Iranian music as a living organism—one that grows, adapts, and evolves. It draws on the wisdom of the past while speaking to the present, creating compositions that echo history yet resonate in the now. Post-Orientalism is more than a philosophy—it is a practice, shaping how we create, think, and listen.
In this text, I have used "untempered intervals" instead of "microtones" to avoid exoticizing the concept of intervals as unique to non-European music. This choice highlights their universality as a fundamental musical phenomenon.