Indian author and activist Arundhati Roy (at right) with Kronos Quartet’s David Harrington at Women’s Audio Mission.
Women’s Audio Mission, a non-profit in San Francisco that is dedicated to the advancement of women in music production and the recording arts, once again hosted the Grammy Award–winning string ensemble Kronos Quartet in its studio to record the soundtrack for Monir, a documentary by Iranian filmmaker Bahman Kiarostami, who is the son of the critically acclaimed filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami. WAM founder Terri Winston and Laura Dean engineered the session, assisted by Kelley Coyne, and Stephen Prutsman was the producer.
Iranian composer Hooshyar Khayam wrote the soundtrack and attended the session via Skype from Iran. Monir is a documentary chronicling the life and work of the Iranian contemporary artist Monir Farmanfarmaian. The film also explores art and music in Iran, adding context to the story of the artist’s life.
“It’s such an honor to work with the incredible caliber of musicianship of Kronos Quartet,” says WAM founder Terri Winston. “We’ve had the pleasure of working with Kronos now on several projects and the diversity of the projects is so amazing, from the experimental soundtrack to the film Dirty Wars, compositions and arrangements from Aleksandra Vrebalov, Wagner, to Vietnamese master musician Van-Anh Vo, and now Monir with Hooshyar Khayam from Iran. It really showcases and validates the level of engineering that Women’s Audio Mission can consistently deliver. To end the tracking session with a visit from Arundhati Roy made today such an amazing and incredibly international day.”
WAM used Earthworks QTC30s into Great River MP-2NV preamps as well as Advanced Audio CM-47, Neumann U 87, AKG C 414 and Audio Technica AT-4050 mics into Avedis MA5 and Millennia mic pre’s.
For more information about Women’s Audio Mission, visit www.womensaudiomission.org.
