Vida Kashizadeh

Concert Fri 25 August at 7:30pm
- Admission £6 (£5 conc.)
Workshop Saturday 26 Aug 2:30 - 4:30

There are limited places available for the workshop. We can only have only 12 people please book in advance. To book please email info@caravansary.org or call 0794 44 89 527

Vida Kashizade

"I call myself a trans-national artist because I'm Iranian but I can't go back home, and I'm a Londoner but I can't call myself English." says Vida Kashizadeh."Trans-national means I'm not representing any one nation." she explains.

Vida was born in Abadan in south-west Iran. Her father played tonbak and tar and from an early age she studied accordion, percussion and wrote poetry. The family moved to Tehran when she was 11 and she later went to study in Germany. She first came to Britain in 1977 and started a family, but excited by the possibilities of the Iranian revolution in 1979, she returned home. As the new regime became more rigid and fundamentalist, she was forced to leave again and returned to Britain.

"I started writing Persian songs in London and performing for the exiled Iranian community," she recalls. She became involved with Contradictions, a free improvisation group, during which time she also added flute and clarinet to her repertoire of instruments. Later she joined the London Music Collective where she sang her own songs, played guitar, accordian and percussion. This developed into community teaching and music therapy projects. Her Persian songs were particularly popular with the younger members of the exiled community but in 1995 she began writing songs in English. "I feared I would end up just being an ethnic performer and I wanted to be heard by a wider audience," she explains.

Her performances involve songs and poems and she conducts workshops for Exiled Writers Ink. "It was never my ambition to be purely traditional, although I respect that kind of playing," she says. "But my motivation is different. What I do goes beyond those fixed points. For me, music and poetry is not only entertainment. It has to do with growth and communication."

Three tracks from "Shab-e Luli" album:

* Anahita
* Hessi Gharib
* Shab-e Luli
* Khaab didam keh fekr mikonam (poetry)

Further reading, Vida's articles