Shahriyar Jamshidi

Shahriyar Jamshidi was born in Kermanshah, Iran. He holds a Bachelor of Music from the Tehran University of Art in 1988. He received his Kamanche training with celebrated musicians such as Mahmood Merati, Mojtaba Mirzadeh and Ardeshir Kamkar, focusing on the study of Kurdish music in order to reconstruct the old songs of the Kurds. Over 24 years of his career, he has been attempting to recreate the classical Kurdish music in an understandable way for younger generations. He considers this effort as a cultural bridge between past and future. After collaborating with several music groups, notably with Bahman Rajabi in Chakad ensemble, In 2003, Shahriyar founded the Dilan Ensemble (derived from the name of the Kurdish musician Qadir Dilan), which has since performed numerous times in Iran. Shahriyar has also performed on several well-known Kurdish TV channels including Kurdistan, Newroz, and Kurdsat. As a composer, he has devoted his career to preserving the ancient music history of Kurdistan. Now based in Toronto, Shahriyar hopes to introduce Kurdish music and the Kamanche to a wider audience, having already performed at Toronto's Tirgan Festival in July 2013 and International Society for Improvised Music (ISIM) Festival Conference in Switzerland in July 2015. As well, Shahriyar will be performing at High-Fest in Armenia on October 2015. He has released three albums including Alvanati (2004), Call of the Mountains (2008) and A Yellow Flower (2014).