Musician Kayhan Kalhor continues on his groundbreaking path

Centuries before the Roman Empire ruled much of Europe and the Near East, Persia was the civilization at the center of the world, influencing neighboring peoples from the Greeks and Israelites to the Indians and Chinese.

The isolation that descended upon Iran following the 1979 Islamic Revolution ushered in an anomalous era in Persian history, and no artist has done more to break through that self-imposed bubble than Kayhan Kalhor. The world’s foremost master of the kamancheh, a spiked string violin-like instrument played with a bow, he’s collaborated with an international array of masters, both on his own and as a founding member of Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble.

A regular presence on Bay Area stages in recent years, Kalhor returns with an unprecedented project featuring Erdal Erzincan, a virtuoso on baglama (a Turkish lute). The duo performs Friday at Herbst Theatre as part of the California Institute of Integral Studies international concert series, and Sunday at the Montalvo Arts Center’s Carriage House Theatre.

Collaborators for the past 12 years, Kalhor and Erzincan (pronounced erzin-jon) introduced their singular synthesis of Turkish Sufi music and the classical Persian tradition on the gorgeous, improvisation-laced 2006 album “The Wind” (ECM). For Kalhor, the decision to pursue a musical partnership with Erzincan flowed from a sense that he was prepared for a long-term creative engagement.

“I don’t want to do an album and just jam,” said Kalhor, 51. “I want to start something that can go on for years. That’s the bigger challenge. It’s not how to get involved in this unknown music. It’s can we develop a language or not. Getting outside my comfort zone helps me. I always want this child to grow and see what it can do. If many other people imitate it, it becomes an art form.”

His ongoing commitment to forging new musical paths manifested itself with particular beauty in Ghazal, an ensemble he created in the late 1990s with North Indian classical masters Shujaat Husain Khan (sitar) and Sandeep Das (tabla). Blending Hindustani ragas with classical Persian modes, Ghazal went beyond finding common ground between neighboring cultures. The trio created new forms for collective improvisation.

“It’s not Persian music,” Kalhor said. “It’s not Indian music. It’s something that didn’t exist before. It has some musical values to offer to the listener, some meaningful values.”

Kalhor spends most of his time these days performing internationally, with a steady flow of projects and concerts in Europe and Asia. I caught up with him by phone at his ranch in Cherry Valley, a rural Southern California community between San Bernardino and Palm Springs. Growing up in a Kurdish family in western Iran — “horse country,” as he describes it — he was raised around the animals, and they’re an abiding passion.

“I breed Arabian horses and a lot of these animals, are like family,” Kalhor said. “There’s one horse here I raised since birth. My family loved horses. My brother was a really good rider. My wife is a very good rider, and we got to know each other through horses. We can’t live without animals.”

Having a rejuvenating oasis that’s separate from his musical life means Kalhor forges new creative relationships on the road. He connected with Erzincan when a Turkish friend in Holland sent him some CDs by the baglama master. The music was more commercial, but Kalhor saw the potential for a collaboration.

After a week in Istanbul playing informally with Erzincan, Kalhor started to immerse himself in music associated with Turkey’s Alevi sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam infused with Sufi mysticism. “The Wind” documented their first concert, and they’ve performed several hundred times since then.

The music is spacious and refined, marked by extended rhythmic cycles and keening melodies that evoke the natural world. By the time they released a second album, 2013’s “Kula Kulluk Yakisir Mi” (ECM), their duo represented something truly new, a path that other Turkish musicians are starting to explore.

“We picked up each other’s melodies, and it started like that,” Kalhor said. “No one has done this in Turkish music. No one knew who I was in Turkey, and now they do, and they listen to my music. I love to see these projects grow and live.”

Contact Andrew Gilbert at jazzscribe@aol.com.