Music and Exile Series | Roundtable: "Music After Exile: How to Continue?"

Learn more about the guest artists:

Hura Mirshekari is a multidisciplinary artist from Sistan and Baluchestan, a marginalized region in southeastern Iran. The first woman in her province to practice singing, she breaks a cultural taboo by expressing herself in her mother tongue, Sistani, a rare and endangered Persian dialect. Her work, whether musical or visual, is deeply engaged: she denounces the oppression of women and claims emancipation through art.
Initially trained in mathematics, she quickly turned to painting. She has exhibited her works in Iran, the United States, and France, where she has lived since 2016 and professionalized as a singer. A former member of the Aïka Ensemble, Hura draws on Sistani intonations to create melodies rooted in her culture, freeing herself from regional influences (Pakistan, Afghanistan).
Since 2022, she has performed in concerts in France, notably at solidarity events such as those supporting the Woman, Life, Freedom movement. On stage, she merges singing, performance, and visual art—notably through the mold of her face, a recurring symbol of her identity and struggle. Her musical work, rooted in the sounds of Sistani, seeks to preserve and reinvent a long-stifled tradition, while denouncing the oppression of women in Iran.

Born in Florence, Anna Andreotti began acting after studying literature and music (piano and saxophone). In 1987, she joined the French company Le Théâtre de la Sphère. From 1991, she began writing, directing, and performing her own plays while continuing her work as an actress with other companies in Italy and France. In 1994, she met Giovanna Marini, with whom she trained for five years in traditional Italian singing. She is a co-founder of the group PASSIO. Since January 2010, she has been collecting and staging songs and testimonies of Italian immigrants in France, "In the Footsteps of Italian Immigration"; a film was made by René Baratta titled "In the Footsteps of Italian Immigration – French Stories."

Anna Andreotti's La Maggese company website:

Balakumar and Senthil Paramalingam come from a lineage of Tamil musicians. Born in Ceylon, Sri Lanka, they grew up in an environment steeped in Carnatic music, learning from many masters from a young age. Forced into exile with their parents who were refugees in France, they continued their musical training in a new context, opening themselves to other traditions and sonic influences. With their duo Ceylan Brothers, they offer an immersion into the heart of the scholarly musical traditions of South India and Sri Lanka. These repertoires are distinguished by abundant instrumental richness and great linguistic diversity. Throughout their journey, they have had the opportunity to share the stage with iconic figures of Indian music, including L. Subramaniam, Mandolin U Rajesh, Ashok Pathak, Sanju Sahai, Anubrata Chatterjee, and Tanmoy Bose.

A Konnakol workshop will be offered by Balakumar Paramalingam on the same day from 2:00 PM to 3:30 PM (registration required):

Learn more about the moderator:

David Christoffel is a poet and composer, radio personality, and holds a doctorate in musicology from EHESS. A former columnist for France Musique (from 2010 to 2014), he produces magazines and creative programs for France Culture and Espace 2 (RTS) and the weekly program Metaclassique, sometimes recorded at the Paris Musical Library and broadcast on about a hundred independent radio stations, which gives rise to Annales. A lecturer at the CNAM and then at the CFMI in Orsay, he develops modules on musical mediation through radio creation at the CNSMD in Lyon and Paris, at ENS Ulm, and in various universities (Sorbonne, Tours, Evry, Geneva, and occasionally Nice and Grenoble).

David Christoffel's Métaclassique program website: