Dear Friends,

Today is the 31st day of Nasrin Sotoudeh’s hunger strike.​I and acclaimed Grammy-winning Kronos Quartet, are working on a new piece named: ​“Nasrin’s Dream”​A piece dedicated to Nasrin Sotoudeh, the acclaimed human rights lawyer who has been unjustly sentenced to 33 years of prison and 148 lashes in Iran. She is currently placed in solitary confinement while on a hunger strike since May. Iranian authorities have denied her access to her lawyer and Iranian prisons are infested with the Covid-19 virus. This veteran of a 40-year-long fight for human rights and women rights in Iran is in danger along with several political prisoners in Iran.

Last year today, Flying Carpet Festival flew over many cities, villages, and the most magical and romantic places around the Turkish/Syrian border and across the Mesopotamian region. This year the festival is canceled and all the artists involved are quarantined in their homes. The feeling is heavy and frankly depressing but the images of the festival appear once in a while in my own mind and on my social media, and it reminds myself that this is surely temporary and once again the full experiences and pains of life will return to me, The pain of solitude lingers on but it seems like that it is in fact only through pain that we all evolve as a human

Dear Friends,

Happy Persian New Year! Wish you a prosperous year full of beauty and love. I would like to share with you a number of upcoming premieres, performances, and about what has been recently accomplished in the last couple of months:

I would love to update you with my ongoing or recent musical activities and my musical plans for 2019:

As you might know by joining the team of Her Yerde Sanat Derneği, an organization in south east of Turkey which provides vulnerable and refugee children (of Syrian, Iraqi, Turkish and Kurdish origin) with circus arts, I was able to design, coordinate and direct the first Flying Carpet Children Music Festival in the mesopotamia region.

Dear Friends,

I am thrilled to announce that I recently left my teaching position at the Academy of Art University, and I'll be joing Sirkhane Social Circus School as the first Musical Director of this magnificient organization. I will be in Mardin, Turkey four months every year during which will continue to work as a freelance composer, and when not there will be acting as the ambassador of Sirkhane in United Stated and in other parts of the world.

I am psyched to announce that my "Tar o Pood" (Warp and Weft) (2014) written for Kronos Quartet is the second place recipient of The American Prize 2015 (chamber music professional division).

Tar o Pood, commissioned by Nasrin Marzban and Iranian cultural community of Ann Arbor for Kronos Quartet, is a piece for amplified string quartet and tape. It is based on the works song sung by Persian carpet weavers in Isfahan, Tehran and Kashan.

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I am thrilled to announce my first collaboration with NY-based Hotel Elefant (hotelelefant.org) as their 2014-2015 season opener. Named "speakOUT", their new season explores sonic experiences involving social and political dilemmas and experiences.

They will be presenting three of my recents works including "One Day; TEHRAN" (2009), Shetaban (In Haste) (2012) and Sooge Sohrab (The Tragedy of Sohrab) (2014)along other fabulous pieces by Hannis Brown, Mary Kouyoumdjian, Matt Marks, and Leaha Maria Villarreal at (le) poisson rouge on September 14, 2014. I will be personaly attending the event and the rehearsals in September. Looking forward to it!

My most recent collaboration with SF-based Piano Trio, Delphi Trio will be world-premiered at Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival on June 26th, 2014 in Kirk in the Hills Prebysterian Church, Bloomfield Hills, MI. The piece was commissioned by Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival as part of my artist fellowship.

My most recent work for the Grammy Award-winning Kronos Quartet, will be world-premiered at Brava theater on April 12 at 9 p.m. as part of Switchboard Music Festival along with another premiere by San Francisco-based composer Ryan Brown. The piece written for amplified String Quartet and pre-recorded media (fixed media) is based on work songs, love songs and sounds of Persian carpet weavers.