Iranian Regional Music: A scholar's view

This is an Archive of a Past Event

Mohammadreza Darvishi was born in 1955, in Shiraz. In 1979, he graduated from the University of Tehran with honors in composition. Darvishi has taught at several universities in Iran and given many lectures all around the world. He has travelled to Iran's cities and villages for about 30 years in search for the lost roots of Iranian regional music. The fruit of this endeavor is “The encyclopedia of Iranian Musical Instruments” that received SEM’s (Society for Ethnomusicology) award for the best publication of the year on musical instruments, granted by Bruno Nettl (2002) and several other books and CDs.

Another aspect of Darvishi's work in his quest of the lost roots of Iranian music and his search for the surviving compositions of Abdolqader Maraqi, the Iranian composer of the 14th century. Establishing the music ensemble of “Abdolqader Maraqi” about 10 years ago, Darvishi performed and published the works of the great composer.

Apart from his vast research in the field of Iranian music and culture, Darvishi has composed a large number of pieces that have been performed by different orchestras and ensembles in Belgium, Iran, Ukraine, Russia and many other countries.