Recording My Debut EP: A Very Personal Journey
- Ramin Amin Tafreshi
- Apr 7
- 14 min read
Updated: 5 days ago
Back in 2024, I began a fascinating journey to record my very first EP with my closest friends in the Netherlands. What started as a single-track recording project gradually became a full EP: something deeply personal that came to mean a great deal to me. Now, in 2026, with all tracks released, I look back on this journey and share some of the most special memories and experiences I had through this project.
The EP includes five works written since I immigrated to the Netherlands. From the very first piece I wrote here, It’s the Voice that Shall Remain, to one of the most recent, Event Horizon, each work is unique in its story, aesthetic, instrumentation, and character. Together, they reveal many different shades of my artistic voice.
The pieces are as follows:
It’s the Voice that Shall Remain for soprano and piano trio
Event Horizon: The Point of No Return for harp and live electronics
Fantasia for alto saxophone
Fractured Glances for bassoon
You can hear each track by selecting the album cover.
All-Time Partner in Crime: the Phantom of Presto, Elizaveta (!)
You might remember my beloved friend and phenomenal singer, Elizaveta Agrafenina, from earlier blog posts. She has always been an inspiring friend and a wonderful support over the past years. We were neighbours for many years during our studies at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam, and have worked on many projects together.
Following the premiere of my piece Through Windows of Desire in 2022, in collaboration with the Nesko Orchestra and with her as the soloist, it became a long-held wish of mine to record It’s the Voice that Shall Remain with her voice. One day, at a café on Haarlemmerstraat in Amsterdam, while we were brainstorming new ideas, we finally decided to join forces and make the recording happen. To my great joy, she made another wish of mine come true by inviting our friends from the Brackman Trio to join this dream team. There was The Beginning.!!!
During the process, a wonderful opportunity became a powerful catalyst for the progress of our project: Kamermuziekfestival Eibergen. This festival is far more than an ordinary music festival. Located in the small town of Eibergen, in the east of the Netherlands, it feels more like a yearly gathering of distinguished musicians and many close friends, who not only give concerts at numerous locations in the area, but also share some of the most memorable and inspiring days together. Curated and organized by the loving Brackman family, each year brings an agenda full of fresh repertoire, new collaborations, and inspiring musical encounters that often grow beyond the stage.
This festival would certainly stay bright in my memories.
All-Time Partner in Sound, Frerik
When it comes to sound, there is no one closer to me in aesthetic, style, and vision than my wonderful friend, Frerik de Jong. Our friendship began with the recording of Negarehaye Rangin by the Maat Saxophone Quartet in 2020, under his label, 7 Mountain Records, and has grown ever since. Since then, he has been a close friend and collaborator on other projects, such as Toonzetters: Soorbâng. More than just an incredible audio engineer and label manager, Frerik understands my music deeply: he knows its gestures, sound world, inner layers, character, and interwoven textures, and has supported me at every stage of my career. Naturally, he was the one I would have loved to take care of the recordings.
After I shared the idea of recording our single-track with him, he immediately encouraged me to turn it into a full EP. How wonderful..!!
Five Pieces, Five Shades of My Musical Identity
Choosing the pieces to include in this EP was not easy for me. As a debut, I wanted to present five works that reflect different aesthetics and characters within my music.
Prior to this EP, I had the incredible opportunities to record Negarehaye Rangin (both with the Maat Saxophone Quartet and the Dokwerk Saxophone Quartet) and Soorbâng (by Toonzetters Ensemble), works that belong to my intercultural approach, inspired by Persian folk music. For this reason, I wanted to choose pieces that represent other shades of my musical palette:
It’s the Voice that Shall Remain is the first major vocal work I wrote during my first year in the Netherlands. The piece is based on one of my favorite poems by Simin Behbahani, translated by a very close friend and remarkable poet, Sheema Kalbasi. In 2018, it was premiered by wonderful friends and distinguished musicians, Lilian Farahani and the Amatis Piano Trio, at the iconic Concertgebouw. This premiere brought me both the Second Prize and the Audience Prize at the Alba Rosa Viëtor Composition Competition, becoming a turning point in my career. Another meaningful moment in the life of this piece was its small private premiere in Virginia, U.S., by OpenPage Ensemble in July 2023—the very first U.S. performance of my work (!). Looking back on the journey I have had with this piece, it holds a special place in my heart and carries a deeply personal significance for me.
Check out more stories about this piece on another blog:
Prelude for Piano was written partly in Iran and partly in the Netherlands. The piece carries many background stories shared with my bestie, Ramon van Engelenhoven, which I will share in a separate blog post soon. But just as a sneak peek: once the piece was finished, I kept the score in an envelope in my bag for several months, waiting for a moment to see Ramon and hand it to him, asking him to take a look at the piece. Who would have known that several years later, the same work would have gotten its premiere in his debut concert at the Concertgebouw in 2023? Aesthetically, I feel this piece differs greatly from my other works. It is written for piano, my own instrument, and narrates an ambiguous, perhaps even mysterious, duality in an impressionistic language. This same language and style are something I have continued to explore in my most recent work, Fading Green, written especially for Ramon and commissioned by our very dear friend, Dr. Donald van der Peet.
A strong sense of duality comes back over and over through the whole piece. A duality that perhaps comes from a question that has never gotten an answer. Or a duality that may have formed in choosing untraveled and unknown paths. Either way, this duality keeps questioning us throughout the whole piece and never gives a clear resolution, even with the very final chord. (from the program note of Prelude for Piano)
Recording my Prelude with Ramon meant the world to me. Over the years, we have shared countless memories and joined forces on numerous projects—Toonzetters, Prelude, Fading Green, to name just a few. His support throughout my career from the very beginning has inspired me tremendously. Beyond that, we share so many connections—not just in name, Ramin and Ramon—but in style, musical interests, and philosophy. I have also always been fascinated by his remarkable passion for film music, which I share deeply. His most recent album on Korngold masterpieces, A Portrait for Piano, is truly unique—sensational in its colorful performances and truly outstanding in his own arrangements of several of Korngold's scores. My personal favorite? The Sea Hawk. ❤️
Event Horizon marks a completely new chapter in my artistic career. The piece is an electroacoustic work for harp and electronics, written especially for my wonderful friend Joost Willemze and created in close collaboration with my bestie, Soheil Shayesteh. This was our first major project together, and it became a chance for us to explore a collaborative approach and discover a common ground between our individual styles and aesthetics. Therefore, compared to my other works, Event Horizon showcases a new character. At the same time, the piece is inspired by the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, which adds a narrative layer to the work. It does not tell the story chronologically, as program music of the Romantic period might, but rather explores how sound, texture, harmony, melody, and their emotional interplay can evoke the essence of the myth more abstractly. After its premiere in the Netherlands by Joost, and being featured in both his winning projects for Dutch Classical Talent and the Grachten Festival in 2023, the piece continued its journey across the seven seas, reaching audiences in Brazil and the U.S., and eventually making it to the finals of the 8th USAIHC Ruth Inglefield Composition Contest (13th USA International Harp Competition 2024).
Check out more stories about this piece on another blog:
Event Horizon has recently been re-released on the debut album of Joost Willemze, Rhapsodos.
By clicking on the album cover, you can listen to this album on your favorite streaming platforms.
Fantasia has a very special and deeply personal story. It is a piece that has been with me for many years and has gone through many revisions along the way. During the COVID-19 pandemic, when the world was in full lockdown, my beloved friend Catarina Gomes asked me to write a solo piece for her master’s final recital. We have known each other for many years, and I had previously written my saxophone quartet Negarehaye Rangin for her ensemble, the Maat Saxophone Quartet—true friends to whom I owe so much of my career. When COVID hit, Catarina returned to her homeland, Portugal, and I moved into the attic room of my loving aunt’s house in the Netherlands. By the peak of summer 2020, we were working hard together despite the distance and the uncertainties of those days. Through countless online rehearsals, lagging and disconnecting Zoom calls, and the sweltering heat in Portugal and the attic (!), we brought a brand-new piece to life.
Fantasia is very close to my heart. It is an intimate, deeply personal work that makes me feel nostalgic and emotional. It brings me back to the most distant memories—things I cannot even fully recall, yet somehow feel familiar. Perhaps the best way to capture the feeling this piece evokes for me is through a story from the recording session: We had recorded almost the entire piece, with only the last section left. (#spoiler_alert) In this final part, Catarina was to sing the main melody and respond with her saxophone. We hadn’t had a chance to work on this section before the recording, and I had no idea how she would interpret it. Frerik set up the microphones, came back to the control room, turned on the recording light, and Catarina began to sing—and I was in tears. I became so emotional that, after she finished that first take, we paused the recording for a few moments. 🥹 Unforgettable..!!
Fantasia is a reimagining of distant and faded memories—an attempt to descend into the subconscious and retrieve something from the tangle of images or sounds hidden within, like the imagined sound of a first lullaby. (from the program note of Fantasia)
What makes Fantasia special for me, aesthetically, is its narrative approach through melodies that wander and shift from one idea to the next. Some melodies return, but with subtle variations that recall what has been heard before, like faded memories. It is as if we remember a melody only vaguely and try to reconstruct it. This idea becomes the main idea behind the final section: the performer recalls the melody and attempts to sing it, yet each time it changes, as memory is never exact. Yet, returns again and again for another try to find the exact match.
Perhaps you’ve experienced this yourself: when you try to whistle or hum your favorite melody, but can’t quite remember it exactly. So you repeat it, or change it slightly in the way you remember it, though it may not be how it originally was. I whistle, or hum, melodies a lot.!!
At the same time, the melodies sometimes hint at my Iranian background. That, for me, evokes a sense of nostalgia, brings me somewhere between memory and imagination.
Recently, Fantasia was premiered in Germany by my beloved friend Lisa Schreiber. When I heard her interpretation for the first time, I was struck by how a piece can carry such different emotions and expressions, depending on who performs it. I feel very fortunate to have experienced two unique and mesmerizing interpretations of this work (by Catarina and Lisa), each carrying its own character and emotional world, totally dependent on how they re-imagine their own nostalgia and distant memories.
During the rehearsals, I asked Catarina and Lisa to sing, hum, or whistle the final section in the same way they might recall melodies from their childhood. It was magical to see how each of them approached it differently, shaped by their own character, language, and cultural background. Both interpretations moved me deeply and made me very emotional. This is a phenomenon I would love to continue exploring.
Fractured Glances was the very first piece I wrote after arriving in the Netherlands. After moving here, I felt the need for a kind of “reset”: a way to rediscover my musical language and search for my own identity from the ground up. Fractured Glances was, therefore, my first attempt to explore that identity. Since the piece was written for solo bassoon, my focus was on form, melodic structure, and pitch-class choices. An exploration that later continued in Fantasia, and is still ongoing.
Before this work, I had written my Trio for Flute, Bassoon, and Piano in Iran, which I later premiered with two of my dear friends, Anna May van der Feen and Anke Benning, with me at the piano. Since then, I have been deeply fascinated by the bassoon, its sound character, its wide range, the richness of color in each register, and its idiomatic possibilities. Therefore, it felt like the perfect instrument for the kind of exploration I had in mind.
During the preparation period for the recording session, I was also working on another piece, Echoes of the Buried Lullaby, for a fascinating project, DNA, with my dearest friends from the Dianto Reed Quintet. Over the past few years, I have been involved in a couple of their projects, which created a very strong bond between us. Naturally, I asked my beloved friend, María Losada Burgo, to join this EP. Having worked together on previous projects, she knows me and my music deeply, and her involvement in this recording felt like it was always meant to be.
The piece has gone through numerous revisions over the past years. I had the wonderful opportunity to work on the earlier versions with my dear friends, Marco António Gonçalves and Lily Simpson (Lily Janae).
Recently, Lily released two gorgeous new tracks that you simply must hear: She Plays Frisbee Alone. She describes her works as “nostalgic and familiar”— Talking of Nostalgia, Jinx. 😉
Recording Next to One of the Tallest Windmills in the World
Our recordings took place in the beautiful Westvestkerk (Westvest 90), in the historic city of Schiedam. When we recorded the album, the city was celebrating 750 years of its history. A vibrant, lively, and beautiful city, with canals, colorful boats, and very tall windmills—literally everything you would expect from a Dutch city, at its peak! To reach the church, we had to walk through the city, crossing canals over historic bridges, until we arrived at one of the tallest windmills in the world, De Walvisch. The church stood right next to it.
The church features a beautiful wooden barrel vault with pointed arches above its round-arched windows, built in 1909. Equipped with a magnificent modern Steinway & Sons concert grand piano (model D, 274 cm long) and a uniquely warm acoustics thanks to its wooden architecture, it was a wonderful place to record this EP.
Visual Interpretations: The Hidden Hands Behind the Cover Artworks
I have always been deeply passionate about visual art. Those who know me well are aware of how much I love, care for, and obsessively follow the visual arts in all their forms. From the very beginning of this project, it was essential for me that each work be paired with a unique artwork, offering a visual interpretation of the music. These visualizations do more than provide a physical representation of each piece—they are created by artists who bring their own narration and perspective to the music. For me, this idea is part of a much larger vision: an ongoing, close collaboration with many artists to create new visual works inspired by my compositions. This EP project became a powerful first step in bringing that vision to life. I am inspired by the partnership between two of my idols, Arnold Schoenberg and Wassily Kandinsky, whose dialogue between music and painting in the twentieth century has always fascinated and inspired me. (Are you curious about Shoenberg & Kandinsky? Read this short article: Musicians and Artists: Schoenberg and Kandinsky)
To bring that vision to life in this EP, it was essential for me to collaborate with an artist with whom I share a very personal connection. I could think of no one better than my very dear friend and extraordinary artist, Rashin Teimouri (#droniinkpractice). Rashin is a phenomenal artist; her works, in her own words, “explore ephemerality, utilizing water, ink, sound, and other transient materials to emphasize the fleeting nature of moments.” She also works with a wide range of techniques, including paper marbling, collage, and lino print, which make her artworks incredibly versatile, diverse, and rich in texture and expression.
I learned a great deal during this collaboration. We had countless meetings and conversations about each work, and she showed me her process. About her working with ink and water, carving into linoleum with a gouge for her lino prints, making collage using works with different textures, or contrasting colors. At the same time, we spent many hours brainstorming the ideas behind each piece, which naturally shaped the direction of her artworks as well. From these exchanges, many new ideas began to emerge.
In response to the music pieces and their stories, she created numerous sketches and shared many of her works with me. That allowed us to go beyond discussing only form, texture, shape, and color, and to dive deeper into interpreting the music itself and its connection with her artworks. For me, this entire collaboration was truly fascinating and, above all, invaluable.
Side Story: In one of our meetings, Rashin showed me a paper marbling inspired by Prelude for Piano, with a beautiful blue tone and a sense of floating ambiguity. Although I loved it, I had always imagined the piece in deep purple. I shared this with her, and she created the artwork that became the cover in a very special deep purple. Funnily enough, about a month later, Ramon told me he also imagined the piece in purple, without me having given any hint about the cover art.
Another important dimension of this project was video visualization. For Prelude for Piano and Event Horizon, I wanted to take a step further in experiencing the artworks alongside the music. In this way, the listener not only hears the piece but also encounters its visual interpretation simultaneously.
For Prelude for Piano, Rashin worked with her water-and-ink technique, creating the fascinating artwork featured in the video above.
For Event Horizon, I wanted to replicate the same collaborative process I had with Soheil. While I worked on the acoustic (or physical) aspect of the piece (notating for the harp), Soheil worked on the electronics. To mirror this in the artwork, Rashin created the physical visuals and filmed the entire process, while Soheil digitally triggered the material using the harp signals. Luckily, as partners and life-long collaborators, they have already worked extensively in this audio-visual format, resulting in several mesmerizing interpretations they created for Event Horizon. The cover artwork of Event Horizon is, in fact, a single frame from this evolving digital work.
Take a moment to enjoy these works.
Final Thoughts: A Personal Confession
This has been one of the most personal journeys of my life. Not only because, for the first time, I recorded an entire EP with my pieces that are so close and precious to me, but even more because of the wonderful, deeply dear, and close friends who joined me in making all this come true. Over the past ten years in the Netherlands, I have shared some of the most inspiring, memorable, and special moments of my life with each of them, and this album feels like a reflection of all of that. Thank you so much, Frerik de Jong, Elizaveta Agrafenina, Ramon van Engelenhoven, Tim Brackman, Kalle de Bie, Rik Kuppen, Sheema Kalbasi, Soheil Shayesteh, Joost Willemze, Catarina Gomes, María Losada Burgo, Rashin Teimouri, and Thijs Siebert. I'm forever and ever grateful, guys. ❤️😍🥰🌟
For me, this EP goes far beyond a simple recording project—it feels like a chapter of my life story, filled with love, passion, memories, and the true friendships I have shared with everyone involved. It had to happen with each of them, just as it did, and I feel incredibly fortunate to continue this journey with many more dear friends by my side.
Also, this EP album would not have become a reality without the incredibly generous support of Young Artsupport Amsterdam, Sena Fondsen, and De Kattendijke/Drucker Stichting. I'm truly grateful.
Would you like to have beautiful, high-quality postcards of the artworks from this EP (plus a surprising print)? They are now available for free!
Send me a message through the Contact page, and I’ll send you a package with all five prints.
© The artworks on this page are protected by copyright © All Rights Reserved. No part of these artworks may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, videography, or any other information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission.
