
31 January (Friday)
7:30 pm | Walter Hall
Please note that all tickets for this event have been reserved. We encourage you to visit the UofT Faculty of Music YouTube Channel for a free livestream
Curator and Conductor: Kaveh Mirhosseini
Voice: Saina Alikhani
Violin: Bijan Sepanji
Daf & Dayereh: Farzad Khorshid-savar
Program
Dance of Dayereh
Soloist: Farzad Khorshid-savar
Heshmat Sanjari
(Arrangement for Strings by Kaveh Mirhosseini)
Beloved of the Sky
1. Beloved of the Sky
2. Woo
3. Self-Portrait
Iman Habibi
Majnoon Naboodam
Afarin Mansouri
Choopi
Soloist: Farzad Khorshid-savar
Shahab Paranj
Intermission
Simorgh
Golfam Khayam
Funebre
Soloist: Bijan Sepanji
Reza Vali
Folk Songs
Soloist: Saina Alikhani
Reza Vali
(Arrangement for Strings by Kaveh Mirhosseini)
Baba Karam
Soloist: Saina Alikhani
Kaveh Mirhosseini
Biographies
Reza Vali was born in Ghazvin, Iran, in 1952. He began his music studies at the Conservatory of Music in Tehran. In 1972 he went to Austria and studied music education and composition at the Academy of Music in Vienna. After graduating from the Academy of Music, he moved to the United States and continued his studies at the University of Pittsburgh, receiving his Ph.D. in music theory and composition in 1985. Mr. Vali has been a faculty member of the School of Music at Carnegie Mellon University since 1988. He has received numerous honors and commissions, including the honor prize of the Austrian Ministry of Arts and Sciences, two Andrew W. Mellon Fellowships, commissions from the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, Kronos Quartet, the Carpe Diem String Quartet, the Seattle Chamber Players, and the Arizona Friends of Chamber Music, as well as grants from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, The Pittsburgh Foundation, and the Pittsburgh Board of Public Education. He was selected by the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust as the Outstanding Emerging Artist for which he received the Creative Achievement Award. Vali’s orchestral compositions have been performed in the United States by the Pittsburgh Symphony, the Seattle Symphony, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, the Baltimore Symphony, the Memphis Symphony Orchestra, and Orchestra 2001. His chamber works have received performances by Cuarteto Latinoamericano, the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, the Carpe Diem String Quartet, Kronos Quartet, the Seattle Chamber Players, and the Da Capo Chamber Players. His music has been performed in Europe, China, Chile, Mexico, Hong Kong, and Australia and is recorded on the Deutsche Grammophon, Naxos, New Albion, MMC, Ambassador, Albany, and ABC Classics labels.
Kaveh Mirhosseini, a DMA student at the University of Toronto, is an Iranian composer, conductor, percussionist, and researcher of Iranian folk music.
In 2012, he founded the Cantus Ensemble in Tehran and MECA (Middle Eastern Composers Association); in 2024, he founded the JAM Orchestra in Toronto.
He has played in the TSO (Tehran Symphony Orchestra) for fourteen years as a principal percussionist and guest conductor of the TSO and the Iran National Symphony Orchestra in his professional career. Many different orchestras, ensembles, and soloists performed his compositions,
such as the Mili Reasurans Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Hakan Sensoy (Istanbul, Turkey),
Koda Orchestra, conducted by Oguzhan Kavruk (Izmir, Turkey), Annie Kosanovich (Oregon State University, USA), Branka Parlic (Silk Road Music Festival, Serbia), Gokce Bahar Oytun (Istanbul, Turkey), Respina Sting Quartet (Tehran Contemporary Music Festival).
Four Albums released by his compositions:
“Illusion” for Violin & 58 Violin Orchestra was performed by Lora Kmieliauaskaite in 2023. “Illumination” Concerto for Violoncello & String Orchestra, performed by the Cantus Ensemble. “The Waste Land” Performed by Elise Jacoberger.
“Mysticism” String Quartet performed by the Respina String Quartet.
He has recorded orchestral pieces by Tehran Cantus Ensemble and albums by Iranian and non-Iranian composers, such as Christos Hatzis’s “Zeitgeist” and “Winter Solstice,” Reza Vali’s “Zand,” M.R. Darvishi’s “The Lost of Truth,” Mehran Rouhani’s “For Those,” and …
In 2021, his Cello Concerto “Illumination (Eshragh)” was awarded BARBOD, the essential Iranian musical award.
Shahab Paranj is an Iranian-born composer, conductor, instrumentalist, and educator, known for pioneering the integration of Persian and Western composition techniques. He holds a BA in Music Composition from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, an MM from the Manhattan School of Music, and a PhD from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
A virtuoso tombak player, Paranj has performed, recorded, and collaborated with renowned artists worldwide. Praised as “extraordinary” by the San Francisco Examiner and celebrated by composer John Adams for his “unique voice,” his compositions diverge from traditional Eurocentric conventions, drawing deeply from the rich traditions of Persian music.
Recent commissions include works for esteemed ensembles, orchestras, and festivals such as Delirium Musicum, Russian String Orchestra, Intersection Contemporary Music Ensemble, Long Beach Opera, Jâca Duo, Aleron Trio, San Francisco New Music Ensemble, One Great City Duo, MSM Symphony Orchestra, the International Low Brass Trio, the Jacaranda series, and Hear Now Ensemble. Additionally, he composed the original score for Dressage, which won the 2018 Berlin Film Festival award for Best Feature Film in the Generation category.
As a scholar, Paranj’s research focuses on the Iranian Avazi Style, and he has presented on this subject at prestigious seminars, including the SEM, AMS, and SMT 2022 joint annual meeting. His honors include the 2004 Hoefer Prize from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the APSIH Distinguished Scholar Award, and recognition from the Mehr Humanitarian Society (2010) and the City and County of San Francisco (2011).
Paranj is the founder and music director of The Iranshahr Orchestra and serves as the artistic director of “Du Vert à l’Infini,” a contemporary music festival in the Franche-Comté region of France. In 2024, he released his first album as a conductor with Naxos, featuring American soprano Hila Plitman and compositions by Richard Danielpour. He currently serves as the Artistic Director of the Center for Iranian Music and is a faculty member at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music.
Iman Habibi, D.M.A. (Michigan), is an Iranian-Canadian composer and pianist and a founding member of the piano duo ensemble Piano Pinnacle. Hailed as “a giant in talent” (the Penticton Herald), “whose technical mastery is matched by his musical and cultural literacy” (Hudson-Housatonic Arts), Dr. Habibi has been commissioned by The Boston Symphony, The Philadelphia, and Toronto Symphony Orchestras, The Orchestra of St. Luke’s and The Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music, and has been programmed by The Carnegie Hall, The Tanglewood Music Festival, and The Canadian Opera Company, among others.
His Shahin-Nameh is nominated for the 2024 JUNO Award for Classical Composition of the Year. He is a 2022 laureate of the Azrieli Music Prizes, and has received multiple SOCAN Foundation Awards and the Brehm Prize in Choral Music (2016), among numerous others.
Dr. Afarin Mansouri is an internationally acclaimed composer, curator, and opera artist blending Iranian heritage with Western musical traditions. A recipient of numerous accolades, including the Global Music Award Silver Medal and the Canada 150 Medal, she has collaborated with leading organizations like the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, National Ballet of Canada, and Tapestry Opera. As Artistic Director of Cultureland Opera Collective, she fosters cultural awareness through socially impactful operatic productions, such as The Echoes of Bi-Sotoon and The Refugees. Her recorded works include the debut album Dancing With Love, a collection of Eastern-inspired love songs and audio opera Little Heart, both released by Centrediscs. Her compositions, including the orchestral prelude Mithra and cantata Humans Arise!, amplify voices advocating for justice and women’s rights. As an educator, she has taught at institutions such as Wilfrid Laurier University, Seattle opera, Canadian Opera Company. Dedicated to equity in the arts, Afarin continues to innovate through her compositions, and is preparing for a new artistic residency at Tapestry Opera.
Heshmat Sanjari (April 1, 1917 – January 4, 1995) was a well-known Iranian conductor and composer. After studying violin at the conservatory, Sanjari briefly conducted the Tehran Conservatory Students Orchestra and was the Conservatory’s director in 1951.
From 1960 until 1971, he was the permanent conductor of the Tehran Symphony Orchestra, the longest tenure in the orchestra’s history. During this time, many notable musicians, such as Yehudi Menuhin and Isaac Stern, played with the orchestra under his direction. As a guest conductor, he conducted the National Iranian Radio and Television Chamber Orchestra and several European orchestras. He also composed the works Persian Miniature (in five movements) and Niayesh (Praise) for choir and orchestra. Some regard the former as a masterpiece of contemporary Persian symphonic music. After the 1979 Iranian revolution, Sanjari and orchestra played only a few concerts 10 years after the revolution. The pressures of this new situation caused him to become depressed in 1989, and after 5 years, he fell ill and died on January 4, 1995.