Fire of Love: A Musical Performance

In Conjunction with the International Conference on Rumi
7 PM on Saturday September 29, 2007


Fire of Love Flyer "Ticketed Event"


Concert at the University of Maryland's Inn and Conference Center. Tickets will be available by September 7, 2007. For more information click here.

Address and Numbers:
3501 University Blvd E
Adelphi, Maryland 20783 USA

Phone:  1-301-985-7300
Fax:  1-301-985-7517

Map, Direction and Transportation:
Inn & Conference Center


Hossein Omoumi (group leader) ney and vocal was born in 1944 in Isfahãn, Iran, and received his first musical training from his father.  At age fourteen, fascinated by the sound of the ney and by the great ney player, Master Hassan Kassaii, he began his own studies of the instrument. He entered the National Conservatory of Music at Tehran in 1962 to study theory and radif. Omoumi is a noted scholar and teacher of Persian music as well as a composer and performer. He has taught at the National Conservatory in Tehran University, the CEMO at the Sorbonne, UCLA, and the University of Washington. He is now Maseeh professor of classical Persian music at the UC Irvine.  His performance career spans more than four decades and three continents, including appearances at many of the major concert halls and festivals of Europe, the United States, and Canada. His research on the making of the ney and percussion opened new possibilities and introduced significant innovations to the ney, tombak and daf. Omoumi is also an architect, holding an M.A from the National University of Iran and a doctorate from the University of Florence.  For more information please visit at [www.omoumi.com].



Mehrdad Arabi (tombak and daf), an internationally acclaimed Master of Persian music and has received numerous awards, for his work from the likes of Daytona Symphony Society, the University of Borneo , the City of Madrid and the City of Nicosia in Cypress . He was recently awarded the prestigious Master Musician Fellowship from the Durfee Foundation in Los Angeles Arabi began studying Tombak as a teenager with the renowned Morteza Ayan & Nasser Eftetaah. In addition, he is proficient in the Kemancheh and Violin, which he studied with Mohammad Moghadassi and Reza Rahimi Jafari. He is currently completing his training in Western Classical violin with Master Ovsep Ketendjian, a faculty member at the Julliard School of Music.
Arabi is one of a handful of musicians who have studied both the traditional and the contemporary approaches to the Tombak; he utilizes both in his compositions as a soloist as well as an accompanist. His signature style of Tombak playing is clear and crisp. Arabi has participated in more than 20 recordings as a performer, composer and arranger.The highlights of this collection are his recordings with two of the legends of Persian music, Hassan Kasaie and Jalil Shahnaz, with whom he has also appeared in concert. He has also recorded soundtracks for Hollywood films including The Passion of the Christ, Hidalgo and Helen of Troy. He has composed the score and played a full orchestra for the first Iranian American cartoon in the United States, Babak’s First Norooz. For more information please visit
[www.persiandrums.com]



Amir Koushkani (tar and setar) has a passion for Persian music that began at home when he was introduced to the classical Persian themes. At age thirteen, he began formal musical training in tar and setar, and after completing his program under the tutelage of Master Darioush Pirniakan, he became an instructor of tar at the Center for Preservation of Music at the age of nineteen. In 1991 Koushkani emigrated to Canada, where he continues to explore traditional music through composition and improvisation. Meanwhile, he has completed a Bachelor’s Degree in modern European composition at Simon Fraser University. He has composed works for theater, orchestra, solo performers, and chamber groups, including the Vancouver Ensemble Safa as well as commissions from the Pacific Baroque Ensemble, Seattle Baroque Orchestra, CBC Chamber Orchestra, and the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra.  

 


Kourosh Taghavi (setar and robab) was born in Gorgan, Iran, in 1965. After emigrating to the United States in 1984 he started studying the Setar with Ms. Partow Houshmand-Rad. Soon afterwards, he had the chance to continue his studies of the Setar and classical music of Iran with Ostad Mohammad Reza Lotfi and later on with Ostad Hossein Alizadeh. These studies that are still continuing are the sources of his unique approach to the art musical performance. Taghavi’s passionate and melodic approach to music is the foundation of his many collaborations and recordings with numerous artists performing both traditional and modern art music of Iran. He is one of the founding members of Goosheh, Seda and Namaad Ensembles with which he has toured throughout the US. He is also a founding member of “The Sayeh Poetry and Music Society”. As a faculty of San Diego State University, he taught the Radiff of classical Persian music and oversaw related theses on the subject. He has been teaching the Setar throughout California to introduce and promote classical music of Iran. Lectures, composion of original music for plays, compositions on contemporary poetry of Iran and passionate solo recordings are only a few of his accomplishments towards his goals of promoting classical Persian Music. For more information, please visit [www.ava-setar.com].

 


Jessika Kenney (vocals) is a gifted vocalist based in the Pacific Northwest. She has trained extensively in he vocal arts, particularly Central Javanese sindhenan, as a student of Nyi Supadmi and Nyi Madularas in Indonesia from 1997-2000, a Bachelor's Degree in Music at the Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, and in classical Persian music as a student of Ostad Hossein Omoumi from 2003 until the present. She has performed compositions for voice in various venues in the U.S., Europe, and Indonesia, and frequently appears with Seattle's own Gamelan Pacifica, directed by Jarred Powell.  She has recorded several CDs, including "Aestuarium" with Eyvind Kang (2005), and "The Stonehouse Songs", with  Jarrad Powell (2007).