About Parviz Meshkatian

Parviz Meshkātiān (Persian: پرویز مشکاتیان) (May 13, 1955 - September 21, 2009) was an Iranian musician, composer and legendary santur player. Meshkatian was born in the year 1955 in the city of Neyshābūr, Iran. He started his musical training at the age of six with his late father, Hassan Meshkatian. The late Meshkatian played the tar and the santur masterfully and was also familiar with the violin and the setar, having himself learned music from his father. At an early age, Meshkatian entered the Tehran Academy of Arts, where he studied music theory and technique and was introduced to radif (the persian classical music repertoire) by the masters Noor Ali Boroomand, Dariush Safvat, Mohammad Taghi Massoudieh, and Mehdi Barkeshli. He focused on the radif of Mirza Abdollah for santur and setar and chose the Radif of Mirza Abdollah as his main topic of research. After finishing his academic studies, Meshkatian continued the study of music with such masters as the late Abdollah Davami, Saied Hormozi, and Yusef Forutan. He has won the first prize in santur performance at the Barbad competition. Meshkatian taught santur at the Center for the Preservation and Dissemination of Music where he also served as ensemble leader. In 1977, Meshkatian founded the Aref Ensemble, which has brought a number of vocalists and musicians to prominence. He has composed numerous songs and pieces of music, all of which the ensemble has recorded and performed at concerts in Europe and America. The ensemble has accordingly been recognized for its efforts to introduce Persian music outside of Iran. He was also one of the founding members of the Chavosh Artistic and Cultural Foundation. The Chavosh foundation has played a major role in the development of Iranian music in the recent years. In the spring of 1982 he published the book Twenty Pieces for Santour. In spring of 1992 Meshkatian and the Aref Ensemble won the first prize of the Spirit of the Earth Festival in England. Meshkatian's collaboration with Mohammad Reza Shajarian also produced some of the most beautiful recordings of contemporary persian traditional music. His settings of classical poetry to music, based on a profound knowledge of Persian literature, established a new chapter of song writing in Persian classical music. Parviz Meshkatian has recorded over 200 pieces of work, published 18 books and many more articles, and performed in hundreds of concerts around the world. While continuing his work as a composer and a researcher, Meshkatian was teaching music at Tehran University. Meshkatian died on September 21, 2009, in Tehran, of a heart attack. Official Website: www.meshkatian.ir.