Maqam Studio brings Middle Eastern music to New York

“Through love all that is bitter will be sweet.”

Verses by 11th century Persian poet Rumi were sung on a Sunday afternoon in a recording studio in Sunset Park. A crowd of listeners, some with their eyes closed and gently swaying with the rhythm, others leaning forward in quiet attention, absorbed poems centuries old, each line evoking love as an alchemical force capable of transformation.

Maqam Studio is a community gathering space for maqam musicians and listeners in Sunset Park. It houses a recording studio, a maqam music archive and a performance space. Its performance series, “The Circle of Samā,” hosts monthly concerts that bring audiences into an intimate listening setting with musicians.

This year, the Persian New Year, Nowruz, coincides with the Islamic holiday of Eid al-Fitr, a convergence some say only occurs once every 303 years. During the studio’s March performance, vocalist and kamancheh (Persian fiddle) player Payam Yousefi and tar (Persian lute) and daf (Persian drum) player Samandar Dehghani performed dastgah, a Persian rendition of maqam, and sang classical Persian poetry that offers timeless wisdom, speaking as much to the current moment as to the past.

Maqam is a melodic framework that forms the basis of musical genres in the Arab, Persianate and Turkic worlds. It follows a set of ascending and descending sequences, phrases and patterns. Unlike classical Western music, which is usually fully composed, a maqam consists of two or three building blocks that allow performers to create connections and improvise in real time.

The vocalist is the center of the performance. The ensemble of instruments usually includes santur, drums, joza, cello, oud and more. There is no formal stage in the studio. Instead, carpets are rolled out and cushions are scattered across the floor. Listeners sit on couches, lean against the walls or settle onto the rugs.

“One of the beautiful things we are able to nurture here at the studio is this intimacy between the performers and the audience,” said Amir ElSaffar, a trumpeter, composer and artistic director of Maqam Studio. “There’s an expectation that the audience will say something in response.”

The fluidity was apparent during the performance, as the audience clapped and sang along with the music.

“It’s not a black box where the audience is in the dark and the performers are in the light and we’re somehow in this suspended reality,” ElSaffar said.

For some listeners, maqam provides a deep connection between music and emotional experience.

Hifaz, originally from Iraq, traveled from Morningside Heights to the studio. “Maqam music gives me the ecstasy and excitement that Western music does not. In Arabic, we call it tarab.”

The melody of maqam is as rich in texture as it is in emotion. The barrier of language, and the centuries between the present and the time of Rumi and Sa’adi, evaporated under the emotional pull of the melody. To listeners and performers, the music invokes a spiritual calling that transcends space and time.

“When I play, I’m putting myself in the service of the generations of musicians and singers who have created these forms,” ElSaffar said.

“At the same time, I also want to be spontaneous and be able to react to the environment. If I get swept up in an emotion, I want to express it. If I feel something in the room, I want to convert it into sound.”

Buyana Jargalsaikhan, a classically trained pianist, discovered maqam after moving to New York from Mongolia. She now serves as the creative media and promotions coordinator at the studio. Drawing connections between geography and sound, she compared maqam to her native Mongolian music.

“Traditional cultural music comes from the environment,” Jargalsaikhan said. “In Mongolia, there is so much sky and grassland. People like to hum to themselves in that wild space with their animals. It focuses on voices that can travel longer distances. But Iraqi maqam is very subtle, like desert and sand.”

ElSaffar agreed. “One teacher once told me that there was music from river cultures, from island cultures, from mountain cultures and I was like, what is he talking about?”

“Then I realized he’s right. For example, music from Baghdad, the melodic contours feel like the flow of a river.”

As the concert drew to an end, the notes lingered in the early spring air. For some listeners who moved here from the Muslim world, Eid celebrations in New York feel much quieter. Eid at home was marked by the sounds of prayer, of Quran recitation, of the bustle of the souk and of family gatherings. Here, in a studio in Brooklyn, they find a different kind of belonging in the music.