Last December was the debut concert of the Grossmont Middle Eastern Music Ensemble. I was extremely excited about this project since it brought together a diverse group of both students and community members. Fall 2019 was the first semester. We were just getting into semester number 2 when COVID-19 hit and on campus classes had to shift online or cancel. Our director, Farhad Bahrami (far left of photo), opted to use Zoom. Unfortunately, it is impossible to play together using any of the online meeting platforms due to latency which means everyone is out of sync if you can even hear each other. Instead of preparing for a concert, we opted to try a different project: an album. The result is The Caravan World Music Ensemble’s first online album which is available for free at the link below, or you can just listen online:

https://soundclick.com/CaravanWorldMusicEnsemble

For the summer, we are continuing informally by studying Persian Classical music theory (or Dastgah).

If you are interested in either playing in the ensemble, studying middle eastern music, or just attending a live show as part of the audience, join the GMEE Facebook Group (https://www.facebook.com/groups/1413498418796792/about/)