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Afghan musician playing in Burnaby

Burnaby's Ismaili Centre will get a sneak peek at a unqiue cross-cultural musical collaboration. Afghanistan's legendary Homayun Sakhi Trio will be performing a private concert at the centre on Nov.

Burnaby's Ismaili Centre will get a sneak peek at a unqiue cross-cultural musical collaboration.

Afghanistan's legendary Homayun Sakhi Trio will be performing a private concert at the centre on Nov. 4, as a lead-up to a major concert on Saturday, Nov. 5 at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts.

Sakhi is a master of the rubâb, a lute-like instrument from Afghanistan.

"During the country's long years of armed conflict, when music was heavily controlled, censored, repressed and, finally, totally banned, the classical rubâb style to which Homayun devoted his career not only survived but reached new creative heights," a press release notes.

The day after his Ismaili Centre performance, Sakhi brings his renowned trio to the stage at the Chan Centre to share the spotlight with the celebrated Kronos Quartet - featuring David Harrington and John Sherba on violin, Hank Dutt on viola and Jeffrey Zeigler on cello.

The musicians will offer up individual sets and then join forces to perform Sakhi's composition Rangin Kaman, translated as "rainbow" in Farsi - which takes listeners on a musical journey through different regions of Afghanistan.

"It can be said that all music is a type of dialogue, with interweaving melodies and rhythms functioning like a conversation," said Joyce Hinton, co-managing director of the Chan Centre, in a press release. "In Rangin Kaman, we experience the most exciting variant of this discourse: one where cultures collide, boundaries blur and traditions fuse. The resulting collaboration is a piece of rich depth, breathtaking passages and soaring melodic beauty."

Their concert is set for 8 p.m. in the Chan Shun Concert Hall at the Chan Centre, at the University of British Columbia.

Tickets range from $57 to $63. Buy at www.ticketmaster.ca or by phone at 1-855-985-2787.

For more details, see www.chancentre.com.