Niloufar Nourbakhsh | |
---|---|
Born | Iran |
Occupation(s) | Composer, Pianist |
Employer | Brooklyn Music School |
Niloufar Nourbakhsh is a New York City-based Iranian composer and pianist, who founded the Iranian Female Composers Association.
Born in Iran, Nourbakhsh is known for her contemporary classical compositions for piano, orchestra, chamber groups, voice, electronics, and mixed media. She began her musical studies at the piano at the Sarang Institute of Music in Karaj, Iran. [1] At the age of fourteen, she entered the piano studio of Arash Abbasi, a composer and pianist at Tehran University. [2] She won the 2nd prize of Iran's national piano biennale competition at the age of fifteen, performing at the Roudaki Hall. She completed one year of study in music and math at the University of Oxford. She then moved to the United States to get her bachelor's degree, receiving a B.A. from Goucher College in 2014.
Nourbakhsh currently resides in New York City and is a doctoral student in composition at Stony Brook University. She teaches piano at the Brooklyn Music School [3] and composition students at the New York Philharmonic Young Composers program as a Teaching Artist Associate. [4]
Nourbakhsh, along with Anahita Abbasi and Aida Shirazi, created the Iranian Female Composers Association. [5] The association emerged while Niloufar started developing a concert to feature Iranian female composers at National Sawdust. Their first event was at National Sawdust in Brooklyn, NY, April 2018. [6] The group's membership spans North America, Europe, and Asia and includes composers who write for Western and traditional Persian instruments. The mission of the group supports female composers—especially young women—from Iran through programming, commissioning, and mentorship. It coordinates public performances, interdisciplinary collaborations, and workshops. [7]
Nourbakhsh composes for solo piano, orchestra, voice, chamber ensembles, and regularly incorporates electronic media into her compositions. Nourbakhsh's composition “F I X E D HbeaRt” for piano and live electronics was named as the First Prize Winner of the emerging composers competition by the Emilio del Rosario Music Foundation and was performed in Chicago as part of the Thirsty Ears Festival in August 2018. [8]
Nourbakhsh gained attention for her vocal piece, “An Aria for the Executive Order,” in reaction to President Donald J. Trump's Travel Ban Executive Order 13769 as part of the Hartford Women Composers Festival. The text is taken from the Travel Ban and Philip Roth's 2010 novel Nemesis. The piece and Nourbakhsh was featured on NPR in March 2017. [9]
Shulamit Ran is an Israeli-American composer. She moved from Israel to New York City at 14, as a scholarship student at the Mannes College of Music. Her Symphony (1990) won her the Pulitzer Prize for Music. She was the second woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music, the first being Ellen Taaffe Zwilich in 1983. Ran was a professor of music composition at the University of Chicago from 1973 to 2015. She has performed as a pianist in Israel, Europe and the U.S., and her compositional works have been performed worldwide by a wide array of orchestras and chamber groups.
Hilary Tann was a Welsh composer based in the United States.
Martin Boykan was an American composer known for his chamber music as well as music for larger ensembles.
Mark Grey is an American classical music composer, sound designer and sound engineer.
Lior Navok is an Israeli classical composer, conductor and pianist. He was born in Tel Aviv. Navok studied composition privately with the Israeli composer Moshe Zorman, and completed a Bachelor's degree at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance, where he studied composition and conducting. He later completed he studied for a Master's and Doctorate at the New England Conservatory, where he studied with John Harbison.
Thomas Larcher is an Austrian composer and pianist.
Adriana Hölszky is a Romanian-born German music educator, composer and pianist who has been living in Germany since 1976.
Xu Yi is a Chinese-born French composer and music educator in France.
Friedrich Heinrich Kern is a German composer, pianist, and glass harmonica player.
Isidora Žebeljan was a Serbian composer and conductor. She was a professor of composition at the Belgrade Music Academy and a Fellow of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts.
Vera Baeva was a Bulgarian writer and composer. She was born in Burgas and studied at the Sofia State Academy of Music with Dimiter Nenov, Marin Goleminov and Lyubomir Pipkov.
Shai Cohen is an Israeli music educator and composer of contemporary classical music.
Agata Zubel is a Polish composer and singer.
Mansoor Hosseini is an Iranian-Swedish percussionist and composer of classical music, born in Iran, who studied in Paris and Brussels. His works comprise chamber music and orchestral pieces. He founded the Ensemble Themus in Gothenburg, focussed on theatrical music.
Angélica Negrón is a Puerto-Rican composer and multi-instrumentalist recognized for composing music for accordions, robotic instruments, toys, and electronics, as well as for chamber ensembles, orchestras, choirs, and films. Negrón is a founding member of the electronic indie band Balún, where she sings and plays the accordion. She is based in Brooklyn, New York, where she is a teaching artist for New York Philharmonic's Very Young Composers program and Lincoln Center Education.
Amy Williams is an American composer and pianist. She was born in Buffalo, New York, into a musical family, with her mother being a violist with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, and her father being a percussionist and professor emeritus at the university at Buffalo.
Nicole Lizée is a Canadian composer of contemporary music. She was born in Gravelbourg, Saskatchewan and received a MMus from McGill University. She lives in Montreal, Quebec. At one time, she was a member of The Besnard Lakes, an indie rock band from Montreal.
Gity Razaz is an American composer of Iranian origin. She has written music for symphony orchestra, opera, ballet, chamber ensemble, and solo instrumentalist, as well as pieces with multimedia and electroacoustic elements.
Farzia Fallah is a composer. Since 2003 she has been living in Germany, and is currently based in Cologne.
Zosha Di Castri is a Canadian composer and pianist living and working in New York. She is the Francis Goelet Assistant Professor of Music at Columbia University. Her work came to international attention when a specially commissioned piece about the lunar landings opened the BBC Proms 2019.