Niloufar Shiri
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Niloufar Shiri is an Iran-born, US-based kamancheh player, composer, and sound artist. She began her musical journey at the Tehran Music Conservatory in Iran. In the USA, she pursued her studies in composition at the University of California, San Diego, and in Integrated Composition, Improvisation, and Technology (ICIT) at the University of California, Irvine. She is currently completing her PhD in composition at the University of Minnesota.
Shiri’s musical language is placed at the intersection of classical Iranian music (Persian traditional music), contemporary western art music, and improvisation. In her music, she explores the concept of displacement in relation to familiar and distant environments. Her music closely examines textural and timbral spaces, drawing inspiration from staggered pitch relations found in the Radif, as well as bird sounds, noise, and feedback. In performance, too, her unique and radical approach to kamancheh performance significantly expands the sonic capabilities of the instrument and places her at the forefront of its practice. She has offered numerous lectures and residencies on Kamancheh performance and extended techniques in universities such as Pomona College in Claremont, Stanford University, University of California, San Diego, University of California, Irvine, North Carolina State University, Longy School of Music, and Seoul Institute of the Arts, among others.