گروه میهن

The Meehan Ensemble is a California-based Iranian musical ensemble performing traditional Persian music.

Meehan Ensemble

Members

Mehrbanou (Mima) Goodarz, (Vocal)
Mehrbanou was born in 1970 in Tehran, Iran. she started developing a passion for traditional persian music at an early age. Encouraged by her supportive mother, she started her voice lessons with Master Mahmood Karimi at age 15. After his passing away, she continued her lessons with Master Karimi's protege, Afsane Rasaii. In 1988, she migrated to the US and had her first performance with Oshag Ensemble in Los Angeles. she stayed with Oshagh Ensemble for a few years and moved to the Bay Area in 1995. She continues to perform and hopes that she can introduce the beauty of this music to others.

Faraz Minooei, (Santour)
Born in Tehran, Faraz Minooei began playing the Santour at the age nine. While studying with Mr. Behnam Mehrabi he found a deep spiritual desire to study music, an "unexplainable souvenir from the eternal truth". A graduate from San Francisco State University, Faraz is a Nagle Scholar, and the only World/Jazz music major in Northern California, with Persian santour as his primary instrument. As a fulltime musician, Faraz is active in the fields of performance, composition, ethnomusicology, and teaching. He has been fortunate to continue his education in music - as a "never ending project" - with master musicians such as Mohammad Reza Lotfi, Hossein Omoumi, Royal Hartigan, and Hafez Modirzadeh. He is now continuing the path of music in Integrated Composition, Improvisation, and Technology as a graduate student in University of California, Irvine, while receiving the Graduate Diversity Fellowship. In late 2007 and early 2008, he has been invited from UCI, UCLA, and UCSC and Society of Ethnomusicology to give lectures and demonstrate the Iranian music on Santour. Recipient of many scholarships and grants such as the Meet the Composer, he has a passion for understanding the intricacies of the human mind and the world around him and refers to "thinking" as his hobby.

Naser Sheikhzadegan, (Oud)
Born into an Azari family in Tehran and close to an uncle who played Oud (barbat) and adored Persian, Azari and Arabic music, Naser Sheikhzadegan remembers his childhood being surrounded with the art music of these three great traditions. He prodded along for years discovering and exploring the fascinating world of music along with his two brothers and self-teaching oud and violin. This blind passion only turned into a sense of a grounded, deep and long-lasting relationship when he got the chance to study with the great masters of Classical Iranian music while living in the U.S. -- great artists and teachers like Ostad Mahmoud Zolfonoun, Olstad Mohammad Reza Lotfi and Ostad Hossein Alizadeh to whom he feels that he owes it all.

Nasim Gorgani, (Daf)
Nasim Gorgani was born in the Bay Area in 1987, and raised in Tehran. Upon graduation from high school she returned to California where she is now continuing her college education at SFSU. She became interested in Classical Persian Music since her high school years and started playing Daff about seven years ago. She was very fortunate to have Vandad Massahzadeh as an instructor.

Shahin Gorgani, (Daf/Tonbak)
Shahin Gorgani, born in 1988 in California , spent his high school time in Iran where he became interested in Persian national music. At the age of 15, he along with his sister Nasim, started taking Daf classes with Vandad Massahzadeh. At 17, he met Mohammadreza Banaei who taught him Tombak for the first time. Meanwhile ,Shahin continued taking Daf lessons with Hossein Rezaeiinia ,a great Iranian Daf player who taught him Daf by all his heart and let Shahin to hear the elegant and magnificent message of Persian music. This was the time when Shahin began to feel tightly attached to music for ever.At the age of 19,Shahin returned to USA for his academic educations and became acquainted with Shahab Paranje. Shahab has made it possible for Shahin to improve his knowledge of music and develop a new and different insight into the philosophy of Persian music. Shahin is now the Tombak trainee of Shahab.Shahin feels grateful to all his teachers for giving him the opportunity to inspire his life with the sound of Persian music.

Behfar Bahadoran, (Tar)