Middle Eastern/Middle Eastern-American Archives - Page 2 of 2 - Alliance for California Traditional Arts

Persian traditional music

World music

Persian Setar Music

Arabic Percussion

Thuluth, the most important script in traditional Arabic calligraphy (Islamic calligraphy), was developed in the 11th century. It is a large and elegant, cursive script, used in medieval times as architectural adornment, as well as for inscribing various texts and manuscripts. The unique capacity of the Thuluth style in creating…

Sahab Motallebi began playing the tar (a six-stringed plucked instrument) as a child and attended the National Iranian Music Conservatory in Tehran, the Saint Petersburg Conservatory in Russia, and RGS University in Turkey. Mehrdad Jahangiri studied the Persian tar with master artist Sahab Motallebi in 2007 as part of …

Djivan Gasparyan (1928-2021) was an Armenian musician and composer based in Sherman Oaks, CA. He played the duduk, a double reed woodwind instrument related to the orchestral oboe. Born in Solak, Armenia to parents from Mush, Gasparyan started to play duduk when he was six. In 1948 he became a…

Houman Pourmehdi is a master percussionist, well known for his diverse abilities as a musician, composer, and multi-instrumentalist, performing and recording in numerous ensembles and at a variety of venues. He was introduced to Persian music by his father, and received his first Tonbak at the age of three from…

Mohammad Nejad, a Persian-born master multi-instrumentalist, was born to a musical family in Tehran, Iran. As a young child, Persian classical music was passed down to him from his father. In Tehran he attended a special high school for musicians, later graduating from Fine Arts Academy in 1976, and in…

In this Sounds of California Bayview concert on April 29, 2018, our musical artists ponder displacement, migration, and creating a new sense of home. They musicians hail from the Bay Area’s African-American, Vietnamese, Kurdish, and Chicano communities. Sounds of California takes place in the heart of the Bayview-Hunter’s…