Roya Bahrami
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Iranian-American composer Roya Bahrami captures ancient ...
Roya Bahrami was born and raised in Iran and moved to the US in 1977. She worked as a telecommunications engineer for 20 years before dedicating herself full-time starting in July of 2004 to what had been a part-time career as a musician. With over 22 years of experience performing on her Persian santur, she has studied the Persian Classical repertoire (radif) with the leading masters of the art form on santur, setar and tar with Maestros Lotfi, Alizadeh, and Talai. She has studied santur techniques with Shahariar Saleh, Esmail Tehrani and Kazem Davoodian; daf with Esfandiar Shah-Mir; piano and vocal training with Golnoush Khaleghi; flamenco baile (dance) with Lourdes Elias, Jaime Coronado, cante (chant) with Marija Temo, Jesus Montoya, and palos (harmonies and rhythms) with Richard 'Ricardo' Marlow.
Roya Bahrami has performed at numerous educational and cultural institutions in Washington D.C. area, including the National Gallery of Art, the Smithsonian Institution's Freer and Sackler Galleries, the Library of Congress, the Arts Club of Washington, Mary Washington University, George Washington University, and the University of Maryland. She has also performed at similar venues in New York, West Virginia, Oregon, and the state of Washington. In 1999, she appeared on Spain’s national television Program “Imaginaria” broadcast live from Granada, Spain, and later that year released her first CD entitled Probe, in which she explored the melding of Persian melodies with other musical traditions. In 2004 Ms. Bahrami composed santur pieces for the celebrated flamenco dancer, Carmela Greco, and accompanied Ms. Greco on her 2004-2005 U.S. tour.
Ms. Bahrami regularly offers lecture-recitals on: “Classical Music of Persia,” “Music and Spirituality,” “Understanding Multi-Cultural Identity through Artistic Expression,” and “Traces of Ancient Persian Melodies in Andalusia.”
The album ‘Roya’, released in August 2007, represents her second album with all her original compositions including her continued work in Persian-flamenco fusion and one in which she sings and plays all the instruments. Ms. Bahrami has founded the Roya Ensemble in order to realize the album ‘Roya’ in live settings featuring a roster of talented musicians in the greater Washington D.C. including flamenco guitarist Ricardo Marlow, Jazz pianist Harry Appelman, and world percussionists Jon Seligman and Steve Bloom. The Roya Ensemble made its debut concert at University of Maryland’s Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center on August 27, 2007 and most recently performed at the Freer Gallery’s Meyer Auditorium on January 19, 2009 in a pre-Inauguration celebratory concert.
Since the release of her recent album, Ms. Bahrami has been actively performing her recent compositions in conjunction with her extended portfolio of lecture-recital programs. To highlight a few, in February 2008 she presented her 'Music and Spirituality' program at the Rumi Forum in Washington D.C. and in March 2008 she appeared in concert at the Museum of Flamenco Dance in Seville, Spain in conjunction with her program on 'Traces of Ancient Persian Melodies in Andalusia'.
Ms. Bahrami holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Maryland.
