Monthly Archives: February 2011

Hossein Behroozinia (1962) is a barbat and oud player. He studied oud, playing under the supervision of Mansour Nariman. Behrooznia also learned the radif under the supervision of Mohammad Reza Lotfi. He was a student at the Conservatory of Persian music, and later the music director of Ensemble Khaleghi as well as the director of music education at the Center of the Preservation of Persian music.

In 2003 the Ministry of Culture of Iran decorated him with the “First Order of Arts”. From Stone to Diamond, Behruzinia’s latest album won the second prize in the Middle Eastern Album category at the Just Plain Folks Music Awards.

Kayhan Kalhor (1963) is a kamancheh player, composer and master of classical Kurdish and Persian music. Kayhan Kalhor was born in Kermanshah but grew up in Tehran. He began studying music at age seven. By age thirteen he was playing in the National Orchestra of Radio and Television of Iran. Continuing his music studies under various teachers, he studied in the Persian radif tradition and also travelled to study in the northern part of Khorasan province, where music traditions have Kurdish and Turkic influences as well as Persian. He later moved to Rome and Ottawa to study European classical music. He is graduated from music program of Carleton University.

Kayhan Kalhor has a wide range of musical influences and uses several musical instruments, and crosses cultural borders with his work, but at his core he is an intense player of the kamanche. He has composed works for, and played alongside, the famous Iranian vocalists Mohammad Reza Shajarian and Shahram Nazeri. He has also composed and performed with the Indian sitar player Shujaat Husain Khan and Indian tabla player Swapan Chaudhuri, the three forming the group Ghazal, and producing several albums.

Kalhor now resides in USA. His composition from 2010, “I was there”, is based on a melody attributed to Ziryab, a ninth-century Persian Kurdish musician.

Davood Azad (1963) is an accomplished instrumentalists and singer of Iranian classical music  He is also known for his Azeri folk music and sufi music..

In his recent work, “The Divan of Rumi & Bach”, Davod Azad combines Iranian Traditional music with Bach’s melodies.

Hamid Reza Noorbakhsh (1965) is a classical vocalist and musician.

He studied Iranian classical music under the supervision of Mohammad Reza Shajarian and has performed with several music ensembles, including the Shams Ensemble and the Aref Ensemble, as well as with the Ukraine Philharmonic Orchestra.

Cyrus Forough is an Iranian violinist noted for his “fiery intensity” and “poetic vision”. He is a Laureate of the Tchaikovsky International Competition and first prize winner of the Milwaukee Symphony Violin Competition.

He is a graduate of the Brussels Royal Conservatory of Music. He also studied under David Oistrakh at the Moscow Conservatory. Following Oistrakh’s death, Forough went to the United States to study with Josef Gingold at Indiana University. He has toured extensively in recital and with orchestras throughout North America, Europe, and the Middle East. He is a professor of violin and chamber music at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA.

Ardavan Kamkar (1968) is an Iranian-Kurdish santur player. He is a member of the Kamkaran ensemble.

He studied santur under his father Hassan Kamkar. In addition to playing the santur, Ardavan has also taken music composition, harmony and counterpoint lessons with Houshang and Arsalan Kamkar. Ardavan has developed his own unique style. Technically he is considered as an innovator.

Peyman Yazdanian (1968) is a pianist and composer. He studied under the supervision of Farman Behbud and also took part in master classes held in Tehran with Austrian Masters from Vienna and Graz conservatories as well as an advanced stage course in Marseille with professor Ginette Gaubert.

Taking part in the international piano competition, Concour Musical de France, held in 1998, he was awarded the second prize and the year after he won the first prize at the same competition. Since 1979 he has written 37 pieces for the Piano, most of which have been performed in various concerts in Iran, Italy and France.He has also composed the score of the opening announcement of the Locarno International Film Festival in 1998 (Birth of Light directed by Abbas Kiarostami). He has introduced a new form of expressionism based on Persian motives and its oriental moods.

Hooman Khalatbari is an Iranian Pianist and conductor. He graduated from Tehran University of Art in 1996. From 1988 to 1996, he was the principal pianist of Tehran Symphony Orchestra, assistant conductor of Tehran Symphony Choir. He then moved to Austria and continued his education in University of Music and Performing Arts, Graz. He finished his studies in orchestra conducting and choir conducting and graduated from the University of Music and Performing Arts, Graz with honours. He was the assistant conductor and later the principal conductor of the Junger Kuenstler opera festival in Graz between 1999 to 2001. Since 2001, he is the founder and artistic director of the Kirchstetten Castle International Music Festival in northern Austria.

Daryā Dādvar (1972) is an accomplished Iranian soprano soloist and composer living in Paris, France.

In 1991, she left Iran for France where she studied music. She is a graduate of The National Conservatory in Toulouse. She earned her Diplôme d’Etudes Musicales in voice in June 1999, and has, subsequently, completed a four-year professional course in the Baroque style at the Conservatory of Toulouse in 2000. Darya also holds a postgraduate Master of Arts degree from School of Fine Arts of Toulouse.

Darya has given concert performances in Canada, France, Germany, Iran, Sweden, United Kingdom and United States of America. In 2002, Darya was a guest performer in Tehran with the Armenian Symphony Orchestra in the role of Tahmineh, in a work composed and directed by Loris Tjeknavorian based on the tragedy of Rostam and Sohrab from Ferdowsi’s shahname.

Zohreh Jooya is a singer born in Meshed, Iran. She studied music in Amsterdam and Vienna in 1980. She earned a masters degree in opera at the Conservatoire of the City of Vienna. She has created a style of her own in interpreting the traditional music of Persia.

Her work with Majid Derakhshani, “Music of the Persian Mystics”, based on Hafez poetry played on Oriental and European instruments was published by ARC Music. She also sings mystical songs from the ancient poet Nezami in “Shirin and Farhad”, “The Indian Princess” and “Shahrzad” .

Her European classical engagements have been, mostly in opera but she has also performed songs of Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert on television and radio shows.

Mehrdad Pakbaz (1973) is a classical guitar player. He started playing the Guitar with Dariush Abolhassani and Henrik Eivazian and attended music theory courses offered by Mehran Rohani. He also studied the  Persian Musical Repertoire under the supervision of Hossein Alizadeh and Dariush Talaii. He is a graduate of the Music and Performing Arts University of Vienna. He is currently continuing his doctorate studies  at the University of Vienna.

He is one of the artists working with Hermes Records in Iran and has performed various concerts in Austria, Iran, Germany, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic