There are no creative half measures for Farnaz Ohadi. She comes by it honestly. Born in Iran to parents with strong musical inclinations, she recalls her father playing reel-to-reel tapes front to back, over and over, of music from around the world. At the forefront of his interests was flamenco. A “life-affirming” trip to southern Spain made the historical connections between West Asia and Western Europe tangible for a then-teenage Ohadi, changing the trajectory of her life.
Ohadi has long since worn her father’s tapes down from nonstop listening. Now, the sounds live in her. In her work, she weaves together flamenco rhythms and Persian poetic forms (her mother preferred Persian and Western art music) in deeply emotional and political combinations all her own. It’s an artistic language through which she can express herself more thoroughly than any other.
“Flamenco allows that raw expression of emotion and anger that I’m constantly feeling, the need to express, the need to fight for those who cannot,” Ohadi told me when we met in her home base of Seville. It’s a genre, after all, in which audiences don’t turn away from “ugly” emotion. “It’s celebrated,” she continued. “The more vulnerable you allow yourself to be shown, the more disheveled you are, they’re like, yeah, man, all day!“
I had come to Seville specifically to witness Farnaz Ohadi’s expressions. On 14 March, she released her double album Breath on Spanish label AIR Music and celebrated with a small cohort of journalists and industry professionals brought to Seville from around the world.
It was an intimate group, but no small production. Throughout the weekend, we had many opportunities, with and without professional guides, to take in the distinct intercultural identity of Andalusia. Separately and together, we strolled down the River Guadalquivir, through the city’s walled “old town” and the stunning and much-filmed Plaza de España. Ibero-Islamic art and architecture abounded, visual manifestations of centuries of intercultural exchange and innovation. Ohadi’s work was blurring boundaries in good company.
“Before I came to Spain, I was preoccupied with the concept of authenticity,” said Ohadi. “But the people who questioned me the most were non-Spanish people who were active in the space of flamenco. The minute I got here, never once has anyone questioned me. Either they’re very nice to me, or truly, what they feel is that the spirit of flamenco is coming across, and I guess that’s what this is about. Maybe the language doesn’t matter. I am a flamenco artist; I just happen to express it differently.”
The event culminated in a stay at the historic Hacienda de Orán in rural Utrera. On Saturday evening, Ohadi presented Breath in genuinely multisensory fashion, speaking with and singing for her guests.
Offering context was a small symposium of three local scholars, each with a different specialty related to Ohadi’s aims with Breath. Ángeles Cruzado discussed the specific challenges women have faced in flamenco contexts since its early days, as well as the contributions they have made just the same; Lucía Díaz Uceda discussed links between music, self-identity, and mental health; and Guillermo Castro offered a condensed history of flamenco that positioned it against the narrative of Orient and Occident as divided, tracking its emergence in Al-Andalus and its evolution through the Reconquista to the present day.
After a break, Farnaz Ohadi returned with two nimble collaborators: santur virtuoso Amir Amiri and guitarist Gaspar Rodríguez. They welcomed the night with a captivating trio show. Ohadi’s presence was powerful, her voice rich, her gestures significant, her whole body working in tandem with her lyrics to convey each song’s message regardless of the crowd’s linguistic comprehension. On either side of her, Amiri and Rodríguez picked up every cue, their strings ringing through the Salón del Molino with equal fire and delicacy.
It was a performance well in line with the titular idea of Breath as something fundamental and revolutionary. “The first act that we do when we are born is take a breath,” Ohadi told me. “That little cry that you do, that cry is the claim of life.” In Iran, where women are forbidden from singing in public, the stakes of such a cry are high. “I certainly was denied full life,” said Ohadi about her experience growing up in Iran. “To reclaim that, to say that I’m here, I’m breathing, and I’m using this breath to not only speak about the things you don’t want to be talked about, but also sing, which you don’t want to happen… that’s what this album is.”
Ohadi’s textual selections for the album—poems and songs by Persian luminaries from Rumi to Fereydoon Foroughi—were chosen with care. “The lyrics are very intentional,” she explained. “Every form of flamenco has a character. I make sure that I choose lyrics that connect to that core of that form of flamenco, but also tell a story.”
This, too, is a meticulous process. “To have enough trust in a collaborator to come and change the first ideas is not always easy, but there’s a lot of respect. Respect and care,” Ohadi clarified, “for the origins where the music is coming from and the fact that we all have something to say.”
Much is indeed said on Breath. Tracks “To Nisti” and “Bi Gharar” both hold vigil for political prisoners. “Oriyan” urges against self-harm, while “Garden of Love” encourages spreading joy. “Requiem 752” mourns the passengers of Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752, mistakenly shot down by the Iranian government in 2020 amid escalations of tensions between Iran and the United States. “Persian poetry generally is very subtle,” Ohadi noted, but she is not shy about her own points of view.
“I want to show how important it is to be true to yourself,” she said, a message she sees explicitly as critical for her primary audience of Iranian women. “In a concert, I can immediately tell where they are, because they’re either crying with me or they’re swaying with me. I know we have a connection.”
Ohadi also aims to reach a wider world. “People who love global forms of music—I would love to have space in that space, to have it understood that this is almost a new genre, flamenco Persa.” More is coming, she promised.
As we parted company, I asked Ohadi what she hoped people would come away with listening to Breath. She did not hesitate in her response. “If it means yes to you, it needs to be done, whatever it is,” she insisted. “The world needs all of us. We all need each other. To really aspire, that’s the main message, to find purpose. I’m privileged to have enough freedom to be able to pursue music and do it. I have found, finally, all my struggles are coming together.”
On Breath, those struggles mean solidarity. Farnaz Ohadi pursues that purpose to the fullest.
