Get Tickets Now

Proudly Presents

SONGS OF LOVE AND LOSS FOR IRAN

Saturday, February 11, 2023 - 8PM

ZIPPER HALL
Colburn School of Music

The World Debut of

THE IRANSHAHR ORCHESTRA

Music Director - Dr. Shahab Paranj

 Featuring - Sohrab Pournazeri Soprano - Hila Plitmann

 MUSIC BY
Richard Danielpour
Ahmad Pejman
Reza Vali
Golfam Khayam
Shahab Paranj

30 Piece Orchestra featuring:
Sohrab Pournazeri - Kamancheh and Tanbour
Hila Plitmann - Soprano
Hamid Taghavi - Santoor
Marcia Dickstein - Harp
Jaxon Williams - Guitar
Shahin Gorgani - Daf

About the Iranshahr Orchestra
The orchestra explores concealed layers of Persian music by making a bridge to connect ancient Iranian music and its Instruments with a Western Classical Orchestra.
Iranshahr Orchestra is a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting composers, performers, and educators, in promoting and preserving Iranian music. The orchestra’s mission is to commission, perform, and premiere music by Iranian composers.

Dr. Shahab Paranj - Music Director
Shahab Paranj is an Iranian composer, instrumentalist and educator. He is considered as one of the pioneers among his generation whose composition style integrates Persian and Western composition techniques.

Paranj holds degrees in music composition from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music(BM), the Manhattan School of Music(MM), and the University of California, Los Angeles(Ph.D.).

Recent commissions include works for ensemble such as Russian String Orchestra, Long Beach Opera, Intersection Contemporary Music Ensemble and Aleron Trio.
Paranj is a founder and artistic director of “Du Vert à L’Iinfini” a contemporary music festival in the Franche Comte region in France.

Sohrab Pournazeri
Sohrab Pournazeri, virtuoso of tanbour, kamancheh, and setar, is one of the pioneers of performing Iranian contemporary music. Sohrab is the son of Kaykhosro Pournazeri, He joined Shams Ensemble at the age of twelve, and since then, he has been performing, recording, and collaborating with many world-class musicians worldwide.

As a composer, he has composed for great Iranian singers such as Mohammad Reza Shajarian, Homayoun Shajarian, Alireza Ghorbani, and many more.

His “30 Project” and (300) in Tehran’s historical Saadābād Palace complex was one of the important multi-media project in Iran.

Hila Plitmann
Glittering jewel on the international music scene, Grammy Award-winning soprano Hila Plitmann is known worldwide for her astonishing musicianship, light and beautiful voice, and the ability to perform challenging new works. She has been described by The New York Times as possessing a “radiant sound, even during passages of sky-high vocal writing.” Plitmann regularly premieres works by today’s leading composers while maintaining a vibrant and extraordinarily diverse professional life in film music, musical theater, and song writing. Described as a performer with “tremendous vocal and physical grace,” and “a vocal instrument that is simply unreal in its beauty,” Plitmann has appeared as a headliner with numerous ensembles in the U.S. and abroad, such as the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, London Symphony Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and Nashville Symphony Orchestra, and she has worked with many of today’s leading conductors, including Leonard Slatkin, Kurt Masur, Robert Spano, Marin Alsop, Esa Pekka Salonen, Andrew Litton, Giancarlo Guerrero, Steven Sloane, and Carl St. Clair.

Richard Danielpour
Professor of composition at the University of California, Los Angeles Grammy-Award-winning composer Richard Danielpour has established himself as one of the most gifted and sought-after composers of his generation. With Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison, Danielpour created his first opera, Margaret Garner. Danielpour is one of the most recorded composers of his generation, and he has received several national and international awards and prizes.

Reza Vali
Professor of composition at the Carnegie Mellon University
Iranian Composer Reza Vali is known as the “Persian Bartók,” given that he combines traditional work with modern compositional techniques. He has received numerous honors and commissions, and his music has been performed in Europe, China, Chile, Mexico, Hong Kong, and Australia and is recorded on the Naxos, New Albion, MMC, Ambassador, Albany, and ABC Classics labels.

Golfam Khayam
Iranian composer & improviser, her career reflects her unique musical language through the integration of her native musical elements within a contemporary experimental musical framework. Golfam has appeared extensively as performer, composer, and her music is being performed worldwide, spreading her musical message in various projects which has been featured as in Elbphilharmonie, NPR ”songs we love", Danish Cultural Radio, BBC3, Deutchewele, New World Orchestra,  chamber orchestra in Geneva Grande Salle.

Hamid Taghavi
Praised for his virtuosity and unique style, Hamid Taghavi is an Persian-American Santur player who is greatly influenced by the great masters Parviz Meshkatian and Ardavan Kamkar.

He contributed to Shams Ensemble as a soloist composer Mr. Taghavi can be heard on numerous recording albums and has collaborated with famed vocalists and Persian music legends such as Alireza Eftekhari, Hamid Noorbakhsh, Homayoun Shajariyan, and many great artists of this generation.

Marcia Dickstein
MARCIA DICKSTEIN, renowned harpist, is enticing new audiences to harp in chamber music and harp solo with orchestra, and inspiring composers to write new works in classical and jazz genres. As Founder/Artistic Director of The Debussy Trio, she has performed worldwide, in the United States, Canada, Europe, Scandinavia, and Japan, over NPR radio, on commercial & PBS television.

Adjunct Professor of Harp at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, and Westmont College, Santa Barbara, CA, Marcia holds master classes throughout the United States and maintains a private studio in Los Angeles. Her transcriptions and scholarly editions of solo and chamber music for professional and student harpists are published by Fatrock Ink.

Marcia has been featured as solo and chamber music harpist at festivals, in film and television, and as a recording artist. Her most recent recordings are “Look Ahead” (Klavier label), which features 10 new works especially written for The Debussy Trio (Klavier label) and “Chill Dog” (Pupsnap Music).