Iranian-Canadian musician and composer Saeid Kooshki. | Photo courtesy of Saeid Kooshki

In September, Iranian-Canadian musician and composer Saeid Kooshki joined Tsleil-Waututh filmmaker and poet Rachelle George for an evening of music and poetry at Maplewood Flats in North Vancouver.

While George recited the works of her great grandfather Chief Dan George, Kooshki brought to the performance 36 years of experience with the santoor, a traditional Persian stringed instrument, creating a smooth and calming performance by the water.

A world of culture and sound

Music and performance have always been a part of Kooshki’s life. Having taken up the santoor at just six years old, Kooshki recalls the beginning of his long journey of musicianship, composition, and performance that has continued throughout his time in Canada.

“To be honest, even when I was four years, five years old, I felt that music was in my blood. I remember that I learned singing songs from famous musicians very fast. I loved music and lived with music,” says Kooshki. “When I was six years old, my lovely mother worked hard and bought for me a santoor with six months of her income. She supported me emotionally and in buying the instrument, and I’ve been grateful for her all of my life.”

While Kooshki is most experienced with the santoor, he’s branched out to learn a number of other instruments and musical styles from around the world. For him, there’s always been a natural interest not only to explore a world of different sounds and styles, but to combine them into something new as well.

“I started playing electronic instruments when I was 10 years old,” says Kooshki. “It’s very different in that, with traditional instruments I usually play more traditional music, but with electronic I usually play more pop music. Both are very different, but they’re like two kids: I love both. And sometimes I compose with both to create a mix of traditional and pop for my songs or for other singers.”

The meaning of music

For Kooshki, like many musicians, it’s important for music to come from the heart. Whether happy or sad, there has to be a level of emotion and caring to create a truly meaningful and moving song.

“I describe my songs and my poems like a newborn baby. Both a newborn child and my songs come from love. If you don’t have love, you can’t have success. When I make a melody with love, or anybody makes a song with love, the song will be very very good,” he says.

But while Kooshki is content with using either happiness or sadness as a means of informing melody, one emotion that he definitively stays away from is stress. Despite the admitted stress brought on by the social effects of the coronavirus, Kooshki says that he aims neither to embrace nor dispel his stressed emotions for the sake of his music, even for such a calming performance by the beach in his latest concert.

“Never in any time or at any stage in any country. I never have any stress when I play music. I love music, and I live with music, so I don’t have stress any time with music. I just watch and see the subject of the event and I focus beforehand to make some songs depending on the subject. That concert was very good for me. Beforehand I didn’t have any stress.”

Kooshki says that his performance with Tsleil-Waututh poet Rachelle George, as with all his previous cross-cultural collaborations, was both memorable and meaningful. And while he notes the relative difficulty in making a living as a musician in Canada, he says that it’s performances such as these that strongly reify his love for music.

“Before I came to Canada, music made good money for me, it was good business. In any country before I came to Canada. And so being in Canada I still love music. Everybody knows it’s hard to make good money just from music, but I still love it. I don’t know why it’s very different, but I understand that I love music 100%, even if it doesn’t make money.”

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