On June 7, 2010, Mohammad Reza Shajarian, the iconic figure of Iran's classical music made a presentation of his newly designed intruments at York university's Accolade East building, in Toronto, ON, Canada.
If there are a few artists who have heavily influenced the twentieth century Persian classical music by their work and style, Abolhasan Saba is for sure one of them.
More than fifty years after his death this multi-instrumentalist, composer, researcher and master of Radif (the Persian Classical Repertoire) continues to pour vitality and freshness through his important contributions.
The Dotar, Dutar or Dutor (literally meaning "two strings" in persian), comes from a family of long-necked lutes, closely related to Setar and Tanbur, and could be found throughout Central Asia, Iran, Afghanistan, the Middle East and as far as in Eastern Turkistan or Xinjiang, China. In the today Republic of Turkmenistan, the Dutar is considered as a national instrument and is the instrument par excellence of the Bakhshis.
