Composing Otherwise: Actualizing Difference in Persian Musical Ontology

Abstract

This article undertakes an ontological and sociopolitical enquiry into Persian classical music within the broader context of globalization. It interrogates how Persian music has been shaped by historical encounters and ideological tensions, and focuses on the radif (the repertory of Persian melodic models) as both constraint and generative site. Drawing upon Deleuze’s philosophy of difference and becoming, it reimagines Persian music not as a fixed tradition but as a dynamic process. Composition is approached as an ontological enquiry, through which Persian music resists essentialism, engages with internal tensions, and actualizes itself as difference in motion — an ever-unfolding field of transformative possibility.