Pacific Symphony and Farhang Foundation proudly present

A Free Virtual Nowruz Celebration

Featuring Shardad Rohani and Sohrab Pournazeri

Saturday, April 3 at 7 p.m. (PT)

Streaming for FREE on Pacific Symphony's YouTube and Facebook channels.

Celebrate Nowruz with the prestigious Pacific Symphony partnership with the Farhang Foundation. A traditional festival that marks the beginning of spring, Nowruz is a time to celebrate the “rebirth of nature” and wash away the past.

Guest artists include pianist and composer Shardad Rohani, guitarist Lily Afshar, vocalist Sara Hamidi, and Sohrab Pournazeri improvising on the tanbour from Tehran, Iran.

THE PROGRAM INCLUDES

NOURI: Jaan-e-Maryam
Lily Afshar, guitar

Improvisation from Tehran
Sohrab Pournazeri, tanbour

ROHANI: Thoughts of the Past
Shardad Rohani, piano

DVOŘÁK: Carnival Overture
Pacific Symphony — Carl St.Clair, conductor

ROHANI: Dance of Spring
Shardad Rohani, piano with members of Pacific Symphony

Featuring special performances by Sara Hamidi and Lily Afshar

ARTISTS

Melissa Shoshahi, host
Shardad Rohani, piano
Sohrab Pournazeri, tanbour
Lily Afshar, guitar
Sara Hamidi, soprano 
Dennis Kim, violin
Jennise Hwang, violin
John Acevedo, viola
Laszlo Mezo, cello
Michael Franz, bass
Pacific Symphony

Learn More

ARTIST BIOS

Shardad Rohani

With an international reputation as a conductor and composer, Shardad Rohani is one of the most sought after, successful conductors on the music scene today. Educated at the Academy and Conservatory of Music in Vienna, Austria, Rohani has been the recipient of several important scholarships and awards both in Europe and United States. These include the A.K.M Scholarship, Vienna, Austria, and the ASCAP Scholarship, Los Angeles, California.

Rohani is the music director and conductor of the COTA symphony orchestra in Los Angeles. He has appeared as a guest conductor with a number of prestigious orchestras including the London Royal Philharmonic concert orchestra, Minnesota Symphony Orchestra, Colorado Symphony, San Diego Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony, New Jersey Symphony, Zagreb Philharmonic and the American Youth Symphony and others. He conducted an open-air concert with the London Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra in the Parthenon, Athens, Greece. This concert was acclaimed by both critics and audience and became the most widely viewed program ever shown on Public Television in United States.

Sohrab Pournazeri

Sohrab Pournazeri, virtuoso of the tanbour and the kamancheh, is a sensational phenomenon of modern Iranian music. He is a singer and instrumentalist whose music has surpassed the borders of Iran, fusing with cultures and artists as far and wide as China and the United States. His talent and courage have been acknowledged as extraordinary by no less than Mohammad Reza Shajarian, the great master of Iranian music.

Sohrab was born in 1982 to the musical family of Pournazeris. His father Kaykhosro Pournazeri is one of Iran’s most influential musicologists, and his brother Tahmoures has engendered a new movement in Iranian music through his performances and compositions. Music was Sohrab’s mother tongue; he learned it as other children learn to speak. At the age of two, he would play his father’s tanbour (whose body was larger than his) and sing the poetry of Rumi and Hafez. At 13, he was introduced to the stage as part of the Shams Ensemble, and today he is considered one of the core members of the group. Also starting at age 13, Sohrab studied the techniques of the kamancheh with Ardeshir Kamkar, and, because of his musical talent, was able to begin playing as a soloist with the Shams Ensemble after two years.

Sohrab has followed in the footsteps of his musical family, yet has achieved distinct and idiosyncratic techniques that have rendered his method of playing into something entirely unprecedented. He also pursues vocalizing and composing with the same unique approach, and has been able to steer the distinct Pournazeri musical form (with its emphasis on passion, emotion, and inventiveness) towards new horizons.

In the summer of 2017, Sohrab performed the ‘C Project’ for the first time alongside Homayoun Shajarian in Tehran’s historical Saadabad Palace Complex, a project he created with the aim of reviving the “wisdom” and old traditions of the Shahnameh (‘The Book of Kings’) for the young generation and familiarizing the audience with the roots of ancient Iranian culture and literature. In this project, Iranian musicians work alongside actors, artists, a film crew, and lighting and sound experts in order to create a unique multifaceted experience for the audience.

Sohrab is also well versed in the regional music of his native Iran, as well as western classical music, and holds a degree in Music Performance. As a soloist and vocalist, Sohrab has collaborated with artists and ensembles worldwide, including Shajarian, Shujaat Hussain Khan, the Beyond Borders Project and Pacific Symphony.

Sara Hamidi

Sara Hamidi is an Opera and Persian traditional singer, born in 1987 in Isfahan. She holds a Bachelor of Opera Singing from the National Conservatory of Sanmore and Master of Music Studies from the Marcel Dupre Conservatory from Paris.

She started singing at the age of 19 with Maedeh Tabatabai, a student of Mohammad Reza Shajarian. According to Iranian music professors, and teachers at the French National Conservatory, the singer's unique vocal ability has set her apart from many others. The social restrictions in Iran for women's music on the one hand, and Sara Hamidi's deep interest in learning opera singing on the other hand, pushed her to settle in France in 2012.

She has collaborated with many Iranian music masters, including Hooman Khalatbari, Majid Derakhshani, Keyvan Saket, Majid Khalaj and Ali Akbar Ghorbani. Sara has performed more than 80 concerts in Europe, North Africa and Canada.

Sara Hamidi is very active in this field of art with the aim of presenting a global image of the Iranian female singers and also finding new horizons in Western and Eastern music, and besides learning and performing, she teaches singing to Iranian and foreign students.

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