Persian traditional music or Iranian traditional music, also known as Persian classical music or Iranian classical music, refers to the classical music of Iran. It consists of characteristics developed through the country's classical, medieval, and contemporary eras. It also influenced areas and regions that are considered part of Greater Iran.
Richard Lowe Teitelbaum was an American composer, keyboardist, and improvisor. A student of Allen Forte, Mel Powell, and Luigi Nono, he was known for his live electronic music and synthesizer performances. He was a pioneer of brain-wave music. He was also involved with world music and used Japanese, Indian, and western classical instruments and notation in both composition and improvisational settings.
Abolhasan Saba was a renowned Iranian composer, violinist, and setar player.
Vas was an alternative world musical group which consisted of Persian vocalist Azam Ali and American percussionist Greg Ellis. Vas is frequently compared to the Australian band Dead Can Dance. The band released four full-length albums, and both artists have released a few solo albums and participated in side projects. After the group's last album, Feast of Silence, Ali and Ellis went their own separate ways.
Fātemeh Vā'ezi, better known as Parisā, is a Persian classical singer, Avaz master, and one of the foremost female vocalists from Iran.
Hossein Dehlavi was an Iranian composer.
Tanjore Viswanathan was a Carnatic musician specializing in the Carnatic flute and voice.
Parviz Meshkatian was an Iranian musician, composer, researcher and university lecturer.
Since the Iranian revolution, Iranian female solo vocalists are permitted to perform for female audiences. Female vocalists can perform for male audiences only as a part of a chorus. The prominent classical singer Fatemeh Vaezi, has given concerts accompanied by a female orchestra. She has also performed widely in Europe and the United States. Parisa has also assembled a five-piece female orchestra. After 1986 Maryam Akhondy, the classical trained singer from Tehran, started working with other Iranian musicians in exile. With Nawa and Tschakawak she performed in Germany and Scandinavia. At the same time she founded Ensemble Barbad, another group of traditional Iranian art music, which has been touring all over Europe for the past years. In 2000 Maryam Akhondy created the all-female a cappella group named Banu as a kind of musical expedition to the different regions and cultures of Iran. For this project Maryam Akhondy, over years, collected old folk songs, which were sung only in private atmosphere, where women are alone or among themselves: at the cradle, doing housework, working in the fields, and women's celebrations. Maryam Akhondy made it her business to bring traditional women’s songs back to life again. The well-known classical and folk singer. Sima Bina, who is also a visual artist, has taught many female students how to sing. She has also been permitted to give concerts for women in Iran, and has performed widely abroad.
Mohammad-Reza Lotfi was an Iranian classical musician renowned for his mastery of the tar and setar. He collaborated with singers such as Mohammad-Rezā Shajarian, Hengameh Akhavan, Shahram Nazeri and Alireza Shahmohammadi.
Pirayeh Pourafar (Born) is an Iranian musician, tar player, and expert on Persian music. Pourafar learned the radif as a student of Grand Master Ali Akbar Shahnazi at the Royal National Music Conservatory of Tehran. She has directed two successful Persian music ensembles, Nava Ensemble and Lian Ensemble.
Master Farâmarz Pâyvar was an Iranian composer and santur player. Payvar died on 9 December 2009 after a long struggle with brain damage. Although once perceived as marginal, the santur is now considered an important solo instrument in Persian classical music, largely as a result of his work. Over the course of his career, Payvar revolutionised its playing, led two major ensembles and made numerous recordings.
Abdolhossein Mokhtabad is an Iranian singer and composer of Persian traditional music. He is a Gold Medal Winner of Global Music Awards in 2020 and Silver Medal Winner in 2022.
(Tseng) Hao Huang (黄俊豪) is a Hakka Chinese American concert pianist, published scholar, narrator, playwright, composer and the Bessie and Cecil Frankel Endowed Chair in Music at Scripps College.
Cristian Amigo is an American composer, improviser, guitarist, sound designer, and ethnomusicologist. His compositional and performing output includes blues and soul, music for the theater, chamber and orchestral music, opera, avant-jazz and rock music, and art/pop song. He has also recorded solo albums on the innova, Deep Ecology and BA labels. Amigo earned a Ph.D. in ethnomusicology from UCLA where he focused on the music of Chile, Peru, and Argentina, as well as anthropological theory, critical studies, and intercultural aesthetics. While in graduate school, he was second guitarist to the Peruvian Afro-Criollo guitarist Carlos Hayre, with whom he played in concerts and festivals including the World Festival of Sacred Music. He is currently composer-in-residence at INTAR Theater in New York City and Music/Design/Production Faculty @ CalArts School of Theater Department of Experience Design and Production in Valencia, California.
Majid Kiani is a Master of the Persian Santur. He was the best student of Manoochehr Sadeghi, among others. He teaches traditional Iranian music and his masterpiece is the book named: "Seven Dastgah(s) of Iranian Music". He is a leading figure in the Iranian musical establishment, and known for his controlled expositions.
The santur, is a hammered dulcimer of Iranian origins.
Iranian jazz refers to jazz music composed by Iranian musicians, sometimes combined with traditional Iranian elements.
Mohammad Reza Azadehfar, professor in ethnomusicology and santūr performer, was born in 1969 in Isfahan, the Safavid capital of Iran. He started learning the Iranian traditional dulcimer (santūr) under the supervision of Sa’id Na’imimanesh in 1981 and spent some 4 years at the Conservatory of Isfahan. In 1988 he moved to Tehran and attended classes in the santūr given by Faramarz Payvar and Sa’id Sabet.
Houman Dehlavi is an Iranian musician and composer.
