The Canadian composer Claude Vivier had not yet reached the age of thirty-five when he was murdered in his home in Paris by a male prostitute. But Vivier’s music is still very much alive and kicking. Like a modern-day Marco Polo, he travelled the world, forging what he heard into multifaceted, colourful and spellbinding music. Vivier gave several of his works geographical names, and for good reason. This evening’s programme places his city works – including Et je reverrai cette ville étrange, his last completed work for ensemble – side by side Island fanatic Reza Namavar is presenting a brand-new composition about Polynesia. The piano solo Shiraz takes its name from the Iranian city where Vivier spent hours watching two blind singers. The composer claimed that Bouchara (or Bukhara, a city in Uzbekistan) for soprano and ensemble is a ‘love song in an invented language’. In the title of the quartet Paramirabo, Vivier has reversed two of the letters, perhaps in an effort to make it all even more magical.