Pejman Akbarzadeh - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Pejman Akbarzadeh is an Iranian

Iran

Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...

musician, researcher, journalist and radio producer.

Early life

Born in Shiraz

Shiraz, Iran

Shiraz is the sixth most populous city in Iran and is the capital of Fars Province, the city's 2009 population was 1,455,073. Shiraz is located in the southwest of Iran on the Roodkhaneye Khoshk seasonal river...

in 1980, Akbarzadeh had his first music lessons at the age of nine from Gholam Loghmani and later from Bahram Nasrollahi. In 2001 moved to Tehran and continued his piano studies under Farman Behboud.

"Persian Musicians" project

At age fifteen he started to research the works and activities of twentieth-century Persian

Persian people

The Persian people are part of the Iranian peoples who speak the modern Persian language and closely akin Iranian dialects and languages. The origin of the ethnic Iranian/Persian peoples are traced to the Ancient Iranian peoples, who were part of the ancient Indo-Iranians and themselves part of...

(Iranian

Iranian peoples

The Iranian peoples are an Indo-European ethnic-linguistic group, consisting of the speakers of Iranian languages, a major branch of the Indo-European language family, as such forming a branch of Indo-European-speaking peoples...

) composers and conductors. Three years later he published the first volume of his projected four-volume work, Iranian Musicians.

Journalism

Pejman Akbarzadeh has written articles in both Persian and English, mostly on cultural topics, which have been published in BBC Persian Service Online, "Persian Heritage Magazine" (New Jersey), "Shargh

Shargh

Shargh is the most popular reformist newspaper in Iran. It is managed by Mehdi Rahmanian, and its chief editor was Mohammad Ghouchani in its first period of publication...

Newspaper" (Tehran), "Rahavard Quarterly" (Los Angeles), "Gooya

Gooya

Gooya is a Persian-language website started by Belgium-based journalist Farshad Bayan in 1998.At that time, there were a few Iran-related websites and most Persian media did not have online editions. Manually prepared electronic copies of popular Persian journals , such as the magazine Payam-e...

.com" (Brussels), "Payvand.com" (San Francisco)... and Yas-e-no
Yas-e-no
Yas-e No was a reformist newspaper in Iran, unofficially an outlet of the Islamic Iran Participation Front.On February 18, 2004, the Iranian judiciary banned the newspaper, perhaps temporarily, only one day before the parliamentary election, after the paper published an open letter from some...

Daily, which was banned in Iran in 2003.

Persian Gulf Studies

From 2002 to 2006 Akbarzadeh was the representative of Persian Gulf Online organization in Tehran. He has published various articles about this waterway in both English and Persian.
He also lectured at the Persian Studies Foundation conference in Shiraz and Iranian Artists Forum in Tehran. The text of most of these lectures were published in "Shargh" daily.

Move to the Netherlands

In 2006, Akbarzadeh moved to the Netherlands

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

, citing restrictions on musical life and freedom of speech in Iran. He is currently a senior producer at Radio Zamaneh

Radio Zamaneh

Radio Zamaneh is an Amsterdam-based Persian language radio. "Zamaneh" is the Persian literary term for "time".Radio Zamaneh is founding by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs but in content an independent broadcasting organization, registered as a non-profit organization in the Netherlands, with...

in Amsterdam

Amsterdam

Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...

.

In March 2008 he performed the first Persian piano recital in Amsterdam. The sold-out concert at Bethanienklooster resulted in further invitations to perform in Germany and Canada. In August 2008 Pejman dedicated his recital at the University of Cologne

Cologne

Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...

to Ahmad Batebi

Ahmad Batebi

Ahmad Batebi is a former prisoner of conscience. During his studies at the University of Tehran he gained international fame for his appearance on the July 17, 1999 cover of The Economist magazine, holding up a shirt splattered with the blood of a fellow protester.The photo, which has been called...

, symbol of pro-democracy movement of Tehran University students, who fled to the US after nine years of imprisonment in the same year.

In 2008 Pejman also finished the first documentary

Hayedeh Legendary Persian Diva

"Hayedeh Legendary Persian Diva" is a 2009 documentary film about the late Iranian iconic singer Hayedeh, made by the exiled musician and journalist Pejman Akbarzadeh in The Netherlands....

about the legendary Persian diva Hayedeh

Hayedeh

Hayedeh born Ma'soumeh Dadehbala , was a Persian classical and Pop singer with a contralto vocal range. In a career spanning more than 20 years, she had many hits...

who died in exile in 1990. The film was premiered on 24 January 2009 in Amsterdam

Amsterdam

and nominated as the "best documentary" at Noor Film Festival in Los Angeles

Los Ángeles

Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

. In the same year Pejman Akbarzadeh introduced Persian piano music

Persian piano music

Persian piano music refers to piano pieces which have been composed based on Persian music. It can be also refer to pieces by Persian composers for the piano....

at the Netherlands' Radio 5 (OBA Show).

In Summer 2009 following the pro-freedom demonstrations in Iran

Iran

which turned to blood, Pejman Akbarzadeh joined the solidarity events in Europe with the people of his homeland; performing at Holland's Iranian Artists Eve in Amsterdam, "International Solidarity Conference with Iran's Students" at the University of Delft, Human Rights and Press Freedom Conference at Amsterdam's Tropen Theatre and coopration with UNITED4IRAN demonstrations were among them.

Works

Book

Persian Musicians Volume 1 (Moosighidanane Irani, Jelde 1). Navid Publications, Shiraz/Tehran, 2000.
Persian Musicians Volume 2 (Moosighidanane Irani, Jelde 2). Roshanak Publications, Tehran, 2002, ISBN 964-93867-3-4
Persian Musicians Volume 3 (Moosighidanane Irani, Jelde 3). Iran Heritage Society (US) / Roshanak Publications, Tehran, 2008, ISBN 964-93867-3-4

Film (Documentary)

"Hayedeh, Legendary Persian Diva", Persian Dutch Network, The Netherlands, 2009.

Music (released pieces)

Persian piano music: "Fable", based on a piece by Homayoun Khorram; live Performance Amsterdam (iTunes 2009)

External links

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