Mission
The aim of this space is to proliferate choral music from creators and performers across the Iranian diaspora to a larger audience. By creating a hub of information, publishing scores, sharing diction & language learning resources, and aggregating databases of composers, ensembles, and conductors, our hope is to create more interest in Persian Choral Music.
Team
Daniel Reza Sabzghabaei (دانیال رضا سبزقبایی) (DMA) is a composer and vocalist who is interested in looking at time through different lenses: unpacking notions of tradition, exploring memories of those past, and investigating nostalgic frameworks that lean forward. His music has been commissioned and presented by organizations including: the GRAMMY-winning New York Youth Symphony, JACK Quartet, Ensemble Proton Bern, Alarm Will Sound, National Sawdust, the International Contemporary Ensemble, loadbang, the Duisburg Philharmonic, the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, Intimacy of Creativity Festival, the American Composers Orchestra, TAK Ensemble, Beth Morrison Projects, the New York Festival of Song, bassist Robert Black, the Banff Centre, Contemporaneous, Guerilla Opera, the Moab Music Festival, Chorus Austin, the Young New Yorkers Chorus, Pro Coro Canada, The Esoterics, OPERA America, and VocalEssence among others.
Daniel holds a doctorate from Cornell University, where his dissertation focus on Persian Choral Music. He is currently a GATES Postdoctoral Fellow at Université Grenoble Alpes. Outside of music and interdisciplinary projects, Daniel also translates Persian poetry.
Arian Khaefi (DMA) is Associate Professor of Music and Director of Choral Studies at San Diego State University where he conducts the SDSU Chamber Choir, Treble Choir, U-Chorus, teaches choral literature, and directs the graduate choral conducting program.
In 2017, Khaefi was appointed as the Director of the Cornish American Song Institute (now Music Across the Pond) Choral Scholars Program, a month-long intensive summer conducting program held in the United Kingdom in conjunction with Oxford University. In 2022 he was appointed Chorus Director of the La Jolla Symphony & Chorus, and now helms the symphonic chorus through performances of canonic masterworks as well as commissions and new music.
Khaefi maintains an active schedule leading ensembles and conducting workshops for high-schools, colleges, and universities across the country, and is particularly passionate about collaborating with leaders in education to promote the advancement of choral arts within secondary schools.
Khaefi is nationally and internationally recognized for his accomplishments as a conducting pedagogue and guest conductor. In addition to leading regional and all-state honor choirs, he has guest-conducted throughout Asia, Europe, and South America. Choruses under his direction have toured nationally and have performed in concert halls across the United States. Khaefi has prepared choruses for leading conductors including Michael Tilson Thomas, Leonard Slatkin, Christopher Warren-Green, and James Conlon.
Contact us
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