Rite of Strings brings together four distinctive voices in contemporary global music: Iranian santoor player and composer Ehsan Matoori, Grammy Award-winning bassist Edward Perez, violinist and composer Eylem Basaldi, and Grammy Award-winning drummer Engin Kaan Günaydin. Their new project, Dust and the Moon, moves between Persian, Mediterranean, Middle Eastern, jazz, and chamber-music influences, creating a sound that is intimate, cinematic, and rhythmically alive. Built around the unusual combination of santoor, violin, bass, and drums, the music explores memory, migration, longing, and light through original compositions and deeply personal arrangements. Following the release of their debut album on Bright Shiny Things, Rite of Strings presents an evening of music that feels both ancient and new: rooted in tradition, but shaped by the language of today.
