Opium Moon is a

new-age New Age is a range of spiritual or religious practices and beliefs that rapidly grew in Western society during the early 1970s. Its highly eclectic and unsystematic structure makes a precise definition difficult. Although many scholars consid ...

musical ensemble based in

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

, United States. Its members are

santur The santur ( ; ) is a hammered dulcimer of Iranian origin.--- Rashid, Subhi Anwar (1989). ''Al-ʼĀlāt al-musīqīyya al-muṣāhiba lil-Maqām al-ʻIrāqī''. Baghdad: Matbaʻat al-ʻUmmāl al-Markazīyya. History The santur was invented ...

ist Hamid Saeidi,

violin The violin, sometimes referred to as a fiddle, is a wooden chordophone, and is the smallest, and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in regular use in the violin family. Smaller violin-type instruments exist, including the violino picc ...

ist

Lili Haydn Lili Haydn is a Canadian-born violinist, film and TV composer, singer-songwriter, and former child-actress. She won a Grammy Award in 2019 for ''Opium Moon'' and was nominated for an Emmy Award for "Outstanding Original Music And Lyrics" in the ...

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a percussion mallet, beater including attached or enclosed beaters or Rattle (percussion beater), rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or ...

ist MB Gordy and

bass guitar The bass guitar (), also known as the electric bass guitar, electric bass, or simply the bass, is the lowest-pitched member of the guitar family. It is similar in appearance and construction to an Electric guitar, electric but with a longer nec ...

ist Itai Disraeli. Persian poet

Hafez (), known by his pen name Hafez ( or 'the keeper'; 1325–1390) or Hafiz, “Ḥāfeẓ” designates someoone who has learned the Qurʾān by heart" also known by his nickname Lisan al-Ghaib ('the tongue of the unseen'), was a Persian lyri ...

's work influenced its

musical improvisation Musical improvisation (also known as musical extemporization) is the creative activity of immediate ("in the moment") musical composition, which combines performance with communication of Emotion, emotions and Musical technique, instrumental techn ...

style.

History

In an interview with ''San Francisco Classical Voice'', Lili Haydn spoke about why she formed Opium Moon with Itai Disraeli following

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who is the 47th president of the United States. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he served as the 45 ...

's victory in the

2016 U.S. presidential election Presidential elections were held in the United States on November 8, 2016. The Republican ticket of businessman Donald Trump and Indiana governor Mike Pence defeated the Democratic ticket of former secretary of state Hillary Clinton and ...

: In 2018, Opium Moon released their eponymous debut album through Be Why Music. Steven Mirken in the ''

Jewish Journal ''The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles'', known simply as the ''Jewish Journal'', is an independent, nonprofit community weekly newspaper serving the Jewish community of greater Los Angeles, published by the nonprofit TRIBE Media Corp. It ...

'' wrote that "Touches of jazz, rock, Middle Eastern and African sounds flit about" in their music, "but it never settles on a specific sound"; Priya Pathiyan in ''

Hindustan Times ''Hindustan Times'' is an Indian English language, English-language daily newspaper based in Delhi. It is the flagship publication of HT Media Limited, an entity controlled by the Birla family, and is owned by Shobhana Bhartia, the daughter o ...

'' called it "bliss inducing" and "so eclectic, it’s hard to categorise". The album later received the

Grammy Award for Best New Age Album The Grammy Award for Best New Age, Ambient or Chant Album is presented to recording artists for quality albums in the new-age music genre at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards. H ...

at the

61st Annual Grammy Awards The 61st Annual Grammy Awards ceremony was held on February 10, 2019, at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. Singer-songwriter Alicia Keys hosted. During her opening monologue, Keys brought out Lady Gaga, Jada Pinkett Smith, Jennifer Lopez, and fo ...

. Their second album ''Night + Day'' (2021) is composed of two

song cycle A song cycle () is a group, or cycle (music), cycle, of individually complete Art song, songs designed to be performed in sequence, as a unit.Susan Youens, ''Grove online'' The songs are either for solo voice or an ensemble, or rarely a combinat ...

s, with six songs each, that model the passage of time in a day. ''Strings'' magazine praised the group's "silky and sensual" sound in their review of the album, as well as Gordy's "treasure trove" of Middle East percussion and Haydn's electrical violin. ''Night + Day'' was nominated for the same award for the

64th Annual Grammy Awards The 64th Annual Grammy Awards ceremony was held at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas on April 3, 2022. It recognized the best recordings, compositions, and artists of the eligibility year, running from September 1, 2020, to September 30, ...

in 2022.

Musical style and influences

The name Opium Moon and the group's "organic"

improvisational Improvisation, often shortened to improv, is the activity of making or doing something not planned beforehand, using whatever can be found. The origin of the word itself is in the Latin "improvisus", which literally means un-foreseen. Improvis ...

style are inspired by the work of the Persian poet

. Three of the group's members are immigrants—from Iran, Israel, and Canada. According to Haydn, the global

refugee crisis A refugee crisis can refer to difficulties and/or dangerous situations in the reception of large groups of refugees. These could be Forced displacement, forcibly displaced persons, internally displaced persons, asylum seekers or any other huge ...

is an issue that is personally important to each of them; the song "Caravan" from their debut album is inspired by the immigrants they see in the news and through daily life.

Discography

* ''Opium Moon'' (Be Why Music, 2018) * ''Night + Day'' (2021)

References

External links

*{{Official website, https://www.opiummoon.com/ Grammy Award winners Musical groups from Los Angeles American new-age music groups American musical quartets