...a musician and artist — born and raised in Karaj, Iran.
The third-person voice is crooked.
He is me. She is me.
"...I started playing tonbak when I was four and that was the beginning of my musical education. Then I began learning santur with Behnam Mehrabi and Majid Kiani for a long time. I picked up setar on my own, meanwhile. My dad used to play it for a little time. I'm also learning tanbur. As I was trying to enter the school for composition I also learned playing piano to some degree. I haven't been practicing much but I like playing Scarlatti (the son) and composing with piano... Oh I also sing quite beautifully to me ear."
...has regularly worked with (and befriended) artists such as Nat Baldwin, Mat Wellins (Taarof), Michael Pestel, Ramtin Mokhtari, Manuel J. Perez, Shawn O’Sullivan, Eliza Marovitz, Katarina Mazur, Tobias Haus, Sam Boston, Emma Mistele, Loren Wang, Marie Carroll, Xingyan Guo, Negar Soleymanifar..
...has also had the chance to collaborate on some projects with Peter Zummo, David Vantieghem, Alex Waterman (as a part of the Arthur Russell’s City Park project led by Nick Hallet), David Behrman, Nicolas Collins, Lea Bertucci, Wesleyan, Laptop Ensemble, Pamplemousse Ensemble and String Noise Duo. He is also a member and assistant director of artistic planning in Shiraz Ensemble.
"I like the real-time presence of observers especially in close vicinity...to be on "stage" being watched by people expecting me to do something. I'm inspired by the performing spaces I want to perform in. It is difficult to find opportunities that you could explore a space before making something for that space. But that's my thing. I need to live in a space to be able to create in it."
"I like to make sounds out of things by tapping on them with my fingers or a medium. I do lots of improvisation and that's to me more about finding things in the moment. Like capturing a photo. I just want to frame the thing that is already present and there. Perhaps process it as well. I often think about how I can work with and manipulate your expectations and your sense of reality as a tool to work around my anxiety. So, be careful."
"When I don’t want to think I sing."
He works with sound, space, image, words, expectations, and frames. His works include compositions, photographs, videos, improvisations, performance, poetry, and acting. His compositions usually benefits form use of verbal notations, theatrics, collaborative environments, site-specificity, and collective improvisation. As an improviser, he implements some of his compositional techniques and issues around decision-making alongside the language and affordances of Iranian Dastāghi music.
"I love films and literature. I am trying to figure out how to make a film of my own. Film is very much like music and entails both performance and recording. The good thing is that the live performance in a film set is for the people you are working with who are hopefully your friends. I have acted and directed before but in different settings. I directed and transcribed two Samuel Beckett's plays (Act Without Words II and Quad) in my time at Wesleyan."
photo by Chelsea Faulkner
He is currently studying Music Technology in the graduate program at Temple University. He holds an MA in Experimental Music/Performance from Wesleyan University where he worked with Ron Kuivila, Paula Matthusen, and Neely Bruce, and a BA in Composition from the Tehran University of Art and has years of experience studying santur and Radif of Iranian Dastgāhi music with Majid Kiani.
"I don't like obvious and direct references. I don't like preaching. I like the art to be vague. To be manifold. To show what's new in the old and what's old in the new. I like the classic and avant-garde. I like eroticism but I found it very difficult to work with. There are hints of political and social issues in my works but as I said just a whiff. I grew up in a culture of fear, so maybe it's inevitable to think about those stuff. But I also admire comedy. So I wanna be seriously comic."
"I want to walk on earth freely."
Who is this? Who are you talking to?