Remarkable people with Iranian roots

Majid Derakhshani (born 13/09/1957 in Sangesar, Iran) is an acclaimed Iranian musician and composer.

He was born into a family of artists from the Iranian province Semnan. During his studies of string instruments and composition at the University of Tehran, the legendary Mohammad Reza Lotfi became his teacher.

Subsequent to his emigration to Germany he founded the Nawa Musikzentrum in Cologne; the primary and most active center for Persian classical music outside of Iran. In Iran Majid Derakhshani is deemed to be amongst the best on his instrument – the tar. Hence he carries the venerable title Ostad, denoting him as a master of his instrument. His virtuosity has been celebrated worldwide in festivals, concerts, radio and television productions. He is now considered as the best tar player in the world. He has composed for myriads of international musicians, such as the greatly renowned Iranian singer Mohammad Reza Shajarian (Album…

Newsha Tavakolian (born 1981 in Tehran) is an Iranian photojournalist and documentary photographer. She has worked for Time Magazine, The New York Times, Le Figaro, and National Geographic. She is particularly known for focusing on women’s issues in her work, and has been a member of the Rawiya women’s photography collective, she co-established in 2011. She lives and works in Tehran.

Career
Born and brought up in Tehran, Tavakolian is a self-taught photographer. She began working professionally in the Iranian press at age of 16, at women’s daily newspaper ‘Zan’, after a 6-month photography course. At the age of 18, she was the youngest photographer to cover the 1999 student uprising, using her Minolta with 50mm lens, her photographs were published in several publications.

She got her international break in 2001 at age 21, when she met J.P. Pappis, founder Polaris Images, New York at photography festival in Perpignan, France…

Sussan Deyhim, performance artist/vocalist and composer presents her latest work, inspired by the life and poetry of Forugh Farrokhzad, one of Iran’s most influential feminist poets and filmmakers of the 20th Century.

“For me, the most inspiring aspect of this project is the opportunity to introduce the great work and sensibility of an Iranian female icon to the international community. Many Iranian intellectuals consider Forough a cultural godmother of modernist literature in Iran, but she died so young (at the age of 32) that I also think of her as our cultural daughter. A rebel with a cause, Forough spoke with awe-inspiring rawness and maturity. She was an existentialist, feminist provocateur. She was Iran’s Simone de Beauvoir, Frida Kahlo, Maya Deren and Patti Smith all rolled into one. Her work has given me the inspiration to continue my own artistic journey during my 30 years in exile from…

Zoya Pirzad (born 1952 in Abadan), an Iranian author who is known for her novels “Things We Left Unsaid” and “We Will Get Used to It” which have been reprinted several times already, has received France’s Chevalier of Legion of Honor.

“The Acrid Taste of Persimmon”, “One Day till Easter” and “Like Every Evening” are among Pirzad’s novels which have been bundled together under the title of “Three Books”.

The Iranian novelist has also translated “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” by English author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll and a collection of haikus.

Her books are among Persian literary works which have been rendered into different languages, including French.

Books

• Things We Left Unsaid (Cheragh-ha ra man khamush mikonam), tr. Franklin Lewis, London: Oneworld, 2012.
• Yek ruz mandeh beh eid-e pak (“One…

The Persian literary monthly Bokhara paid tribute to Iranian Jewish lexicographer and translator, Soleiman Hayyim (1887-1970) at the Mahmud Afshar Foundation on Sunday.

A number of literati including Managing Director of Bokhara Ali Dehbashi, the director of the Academy of Persian Language and Literature Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel, and Department of Islamic Sciences of the Academy of Sciences of Iran Director Mostafa Mohaqqeq-Damad attended the ceremony, the Persian service of MNA reported on Monday.

Hayyim had studied at an American college and his English was good so he worked as a translator in the then ministry of finance, Dehbashi said.

It was during those years he felt a great need for an English-Persian bilingual dictionary, upon which he usually spent 8 hours a day, he added.

Iranian Scholars hold copies of the Hayyim Persian-Hebrew Dictionary compiled by Soleiman Hayyim

“Hayyim was expert in finding Persian synonyms for English words and phrases, and…

In the final bout of the men’s -58kg category on Dec. 3, 2014 in an event that is considered the pinnacle of elite taekwondo, the gold medal was won by an Iranian who can boast skill and talent in spades – but is a mere lad who is not only still at high school, but as a 4th poom, does not even hold a black belt.
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Despite his soaring ambition and remarkable talent, off the mats “The Tsunami” is menacing neither to look at nor to listen to: The laid-back teenager is tall and gangly, softly spoken and polite.
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With regards to his personal training, he takes two rest days a week. His conditioning focuses on bodybuilding for strength (his tall, thin frame looks deceptively fragile); plyometrics for explosiveness; and of course running: long distance for overall endurance and sprint work in the run-up to competitions.

He started…

Iranian vocalist Hengameh Akhavan will give a concert at Tehran’s Vahdat Hall on December 26. Tar player Azadeh Amiri, kamancheh players Shima Bolukifar and Nasim Arbabi, tonbak player Nazanin Pedarsani, and oud player Marjan Ravandi will accompany her during the Performance.

Hengameh Akhavan was born in Fuman, Gilan, Iran in 1955. She started singing at the age of ten. Her father taught her “Avaz-e Dashti” (One of the modes in Iranian modal system of music). She and her brother were part of their school singing group.

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After finishing the elementary School she went to Tehran to visit her sister and her sister’s family. During her stay she was encouraged by her sister and her brother-in-law to stay in Tehran to continue her musical training and studies. […] For about ten years (1972-1982) she was the student of Ostad Adib-Khansari.

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She started singing for Radio in 1975 collaborating with the Shayda…

Bahram Beyzaie was born in Tehran, Iran on Dec 26 1938. He is an Iranian film director, theatre director, screenwriter, playwright, film editor, producer, and researcher.

Beyzaie is part of a generation of filmmakers in the Iranian New Wave, a Persian cinema movement that started in the late 1960s and includes other pioneering directors such as Abbas Kiarostami, Forough Farrokhzad, Sohrab Shahid Sales, and Parviz Kimiavi. The filmmakers share many common techniques including the use of poetic dialog, references to traditional Persian art and culture and allegorical story-telling often dealing with political and philosophical issues.

After beginning Persian literature at Tehran University, Bahram Beyzaie turned to Visual Arts. Here he studied the Book of Kings (Shahname), the Shiite passion plays (Ta’zieh) , the traditional Persian Theatre including the puppet theatre, the pre-Islamic culture and Persian miniature painting. All of this combined with his interest in the far Eastern theatre helped…

The Iranian athlete won the silver medal with a throw of 17.80 meters at the Incheon Asiad Main Stadium.

“I am so happy because of winning the silver medal. My rival (Gong Lijiao) who won the gold medal is a world champion,” Rajabi said.

Intro Asia Games (Asiad):

Some 9,500 athletes from 45 countries are competing at the Games, the world’s second-biggest multi-sport event after the Olympics, with 439 gold medals in 36 sports up for grabs.

Iran has participated in the games with 276 athletes in 22 sports.

http://iranfrontpage.com/news/society/sports/2014/09/irans-shot-putter-rajabi-wins-silver-asiad/

An Iranian female athlete bagged silver medal of women’s kayak single 200m on Monday at the Asian Games 2014 in Incheon, South Korea.

Intro Asia Games (Asiad):

Some 9,500 athletes from 45 countries are competing at the Games, the world’s second-biggest multi-sport event after the Olympics, with 439 gold medals in 36 sports up for grabs.

Iran has participated in the games with 276 athletes in 22 sports.

http://iranfrontpage.com/news/society/sports/2014/09/irans-shot-putter-rajabi-wins-silver-asiad/

More photos:

http://www.payvand.com/news/14/sep/1169.html

Mitra Farahani

Mitra Farahani’s biography:
She was born in Tehran in 1975 and studied painting and drawing with various Iranian masters of pictorial art, notably with Gholam Hossein Nami. After receiving a degree in graphic art at the Azad University in Tehran, she moved to Paris and took up residence in the Cite Internationale des Arts.

In 2001, she began a course of video studies at the Ecole Natioanale Superieure des Arts Decoratifs, where she made her first documentary entitled “Just a Woman”. The film was chosen for Berlin Film Festival and was awarded the Teddy Awards Special Jury Prize.

Her documentary “Zohre and Manouchehr” (Taboos) was presented at the Berlin Film Festival of 2004 and was later shown in cinemas in France and Canada.

In 2005 she made the documentary “Behjat Sadr: Suspended Time”, a portrait of one of the pioneers of abstract expressionist painting in Iran. In 2009, as part…

A number of Iran’s leading music artists and cineastes attended the opening gala held on Oct. 9.
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Tjeknavorian was also honored with the lifetime achievement award during the gala.

Tjeknavorian has made nearly 100 recordings and written more than 75 compositions, including symphonies, operas, requiems, chamber music, ballet music, concertos, choral works and an oratorio.

He has conducted international orchestras throughout the world in numerous countries including Austria, the UK, the US, Canada, Hungary, Finland, the former USSR, Armenia, Thailand, Hong Kong, South Africa, and Denmark.
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The literary opera, Rostam and Sohrab and the requiem Departed and the Survived are among his best-known works.

Tjeknavorian has received numerous international awards such as Austria’s Cross of Honor for Science and Art First Class.

More info: https://iranianroots.com/2014/06/07/christian-composer-and-coductor-loris-tjeknavorian-one-of-the-most-celebrated-cultural-figures-in-iran/

Source: http://www.payvand.com/news/14/oct/1069.html