Niyaz () is an Iranian Canadian musical duo. The group was created in 2004 by DJ, programmer/producer and remixer

Carmen Rizzo Carmen Rizzo (born April 8, 1964) is an American record producer, mixer, programmer, DJ, remixer and recording artist, based in Los Angeles. The two-time Grammy nominee has worked with Seal, Coldplay, Paul Oakenfold, Alanis Morissette, Dido, Jem ...

, vocalist and

hammered dulcimer The hammered dulcimer (also called the hammer dulcimer) is a percussion-string instrument which consists of String (music), strings typically stretched over a trapezoidal resonant sound board (music), sound board. The hammered dulcimer is set bef ...

player

Azam Ali Azam Ali () is an Iranian musician. As of 2013, she has released ten albums with the bands VAS, Roseland, and Niyaz, as well as five solo records. Biography Born in Tehran on 3 October 1970, Ali spent most of her childhood in Panchgani, In ...

, formerly of the group

Vas Vas (, ; ; or ; ) is an administrative county (comitatus or ''vármegye'') of Hungary. It was also one of the counties of the former Kingdom of Hungary. It is part of the Centrope Project. Geography Vas County lies in western Hungary. It share ...

, and Ali's husband,

Loga Ramin Torkian Loga Ramin Torkian ()،(Born: September 23, 1964) is a musician and the co-founder of the groups Axiom of Choice and Niyaz. Both groups incorporate Persian and Middle Eastern themes into their music. Torkian composes music and plays several in ...

, of the Iranian crossover group

Axiom Of Choice In mathematics, the axiom of choice, abbreviated AC or AoC, is an axiom of set theory. Informally put, the axiom of choice says that given any collection of non-empty sets, it is possible to construct a new set by choosing one element from e ...

. In 2013, Carmen Rizzo announced via Facebook that he was retiring from Niyaz. "Niyaz" means "yearning" in

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

Urdu Urdu (; , , ) is an Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in South Asia. It is the Languages of Pakistan, national language and ''lingua franca'' of Pakistan. In India, it is an Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of Indi ...

and

Turkish Turkish may refer to: * Something related to Turkey ** Turkish language *** Turkish alphabet ** Turkish people, a Turkic ethnic group and nation *** Turkish citizen, a citizen of Turkey *** Turkish communities in the former Ottoman Empire * The w ...

. Niyaz's music, described as "mystical music with a modern edge", is primarily a blend of

Sufi Sufism ( or ) is a mysticism, mystic body of religious practice found within Islam which is characterized by a focus on Islamic Tazkiyah, purification, spirituality, ritualism, and Asceticism#Islam, asceticism. Practitioners of Sufism are r ...

mysticism and trance electronica. Niyaz adapts Persian, Indian and Mediterranean folk sounds, poetry and songs including the poetry of Sufi mystic

Rumi Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī (), or simply Rumi (30 September 1207 – 17 December 1273), was a 13th-century poet, Hanafi '' faqih'' (jurist), Maturidi theologian (''mutakallim''), and Sufi mystic born during the Khwarazmian Empire ...

, with Western electronic instrumentation and programming. Their self-titled debut album, released in 2005, combined 13th century

and

poetry with "swirling, hypnotic beats". Their 2008 follow-up album, Nine Heavens, featured two discs; the second disc contained acoustic renditions of the tracks on the first disc. Their third album, ''

Sumud Sumud (, meaning "steadfastness"Abed, 1988, p. 288. or "steadfast perseverance"; derived from the verb ''ṣamada'', meaning "arrange, adorn, lay up, save") is a Palestinian cultural value, ideological theme and political strategy that emerged ...

'' (صمود), released in spring 2012. A companion piece to the album, an acoustic EP with six songs, was released 19 March 2013.

Lyrical sources

Though they have several songs with original lyrics, the bulk of their lyrics are derived from Persian and Urdu

poetry by the likes of

, Obeyd-e Zakani,

Amir Khusrow Abu'l Hasan Yamīn ud-Dīn Khusrau (1253 – 1325 AD), better known as Amīr Khusrau, sometimes spelled as, Amir Khusrow or Amir Khusro, was an Indo-Persian Sufi singer, musician, poet and scholar, who lived during the period of the Delhi Sult ...

and Khaju-ye Kermani, and folk songs from Iran,

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. It is bordered by Pakistan to the Durand Line, east and south, Iran to the Afghanistan–Iran borde ...

Pakistan Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of over 241.5 million, having the Islam by country# ...

and other parts of the Middle East and central Asia. The lyrics of their first two albums are almost exclusively in

and

, with the exception of a

song on Nine Heavens, but their third album,

featured mostly Persian songs with two songs in Turkish and one each in

Palestinian Arabic Palestinian Arabic (also known as simply Palestinian) is part of a dialect continuum comprising various mutually intelligible varieties of Levantine Arabic spoken by Palestinians in Palestine, which includes the State of Palestine, Israel, and t ...

and the Kurmanji dialect of

Kurdish Kurdish may refer to: *Kurds or Kurdish people *Kurdish language ** Northern Kurdish (Kurmanji) **Central Kurdish (Sorani) **Southern Kurdish ** Laki Kurdish *Kurdish alphabets *Kurdistan, the land of the Kurdish people which includes: **Southern ...

Discography

Albums

* ''

Niyaz Niyaz () is an Iranian Canadian musical duo. The group was created in 2004 by DJ, programmer/producer and remixer Carmen Rizzo, vocalist and hammered dulcimer player Azam Ali, formerly of the group Vas, and Ali's husband, Loga Ramin Torkian, ...

'' (2005) * '' Nine Heavens'' (2008) * ''

'' (2012) * ''Sumud Acoustic EP'' (2013) * '' The Fourth Light'' (2015)

References

External links

* Iranian musical groups Performers of Sufi music American world music groups Musical groups established in 2005 Six Degrees Records artists {{Asia-band-stub