Seyed Ali Jaberi

Biography and artistic career

Seyed Ali Jaberi (born 21 September 1974 in Kermanshah) is an outstanding player of the tanbur and the setar (a small long-necked lute) who currently lives in England. He is one of the well-known figures of Iran’s mystical music and has been chosen as best tanbur player at several editions of the Fajr Music Festival. To date Jaberi has released three albums: Hamdeli (“Empathy”), Az Zabur-e Tanhayi (“From the Psalms of Solitude”) and Saharkhizan (“Those Who Rise at Dawn”).

From childhood, having grown up in a family devoted to the spiritual path and mysticism, and under the influence of his grandfather, who was one of the elders of the path, he was drawn to spiritual and musical teachings. At the age of seven, encouraged by his father and his paternal uncle, he began learning the tanbur with Golnazar Azizi, and later studied with Seyed Amrollah Shahebrahimi and Darvish Amir Hayati.

After that he learned the setar with Ebrahim Sepehri and Hossein Alizadeh, and studied the fundamentals of music theory with Mohammad Reza Lotfi and Keykhosrow Pournazeri.

Festivals and concerts

In 1995 Seyed Ali Jaberi won first prize for tanbur performance at the Fajr Music Festival, and at the same time he led the ensemble “Seyed Ali Khan”.

After that he performed with various ensembles in European and African countries.

In 2007 he gave performances in Tunisia with the Hamdel Ensemble, which led to an official invitation for the group to appear at the Carthage International Music Festival.

In the same year the Shams and Mowlana Ensemble, led by Jaberi and playing his compositions, toured Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands.

In 2008 the Hamdel Ensemble under his direction performed in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, and in the same year, at the invitation of the Music Museum of Iran, they performed at the opening ceremony of the musical instrument museum of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome.

Between 2009 and 2010 Jaberi and his ensemble performed pieces from their own compositions and from those of other Iranian artists, including Sina Sarlak, in Austria, Germany and Italy.

Between 2015 and 2018 he gave more than 60 international concerts and collaborated with figures such as Sami Yusuf and Sina Sarlak.

In 2017 his joint concert with Sina Sarlak and the Hamdel Ensemble took place at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester.

In January/February 2019, Shahram Nazeri performed in Manchester for the first time, together with the Hamdel Ensemble, as part of the project Zaban-e Eshgh (“The Language of Love”). A few days later the same project was staged at the University of Oxford and met with a remarkable response from audiences and the media. A notable feature of this performance was that it took place without any sound system in the historic Holywell hall, which is more than 270 years old.

In 2019 Seyed Ali Jaberi and the Hamdel Ensemble took their concert tour Ey Eshgh Hameh Bahaneh az Tost (“O Love, All Pretexts Come from You”) to various British cities, including Sheffield, Manchester, Bristol, Edinburgh, Gateshead and Birmingham.

These performances were supported by Arts Council England and the North West Arts Association, and some of them were presented at the international festivals Migration Matters, HOME and Edinburgh Fringe.

At the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the Hamdel Ensemble under Jaberi’s direction attracted wide critical attention with a performance of music and Sufi dance at St Giles’ Cathedral.

Musical works

🎵 The album Hamdeli

Seyed Ali Jaberi’s first official work, comprising ten pieces with his own tanbur playing and Ahmad Khaktinat on the daf (frame drum), was released in the mid-1990s by Soroush.

The work was also released abroad under the title Empathy.

🎵 The album Az Zabur-e Tanhayi

Jaberi’s second studio album, comprising six pieces arranged and edited by Meghdad Shahhosseini, was released in 2010 by Hermes Records.

The album is built on mystical themes and received four stars out of five in the international magazine Songlines. Its review said:

“The tanbur is a sacred and spiritual instrument for the people of Kurdistan; it has a penetrating sound that is not only an expression of their culture but, for many, a form of devotional practice.”

🎵 The album Saharkhizan

Jaberi’s third album, composed and produced by him with vocals by Mohammad Safaei, in the spirit of khanqah music (the music of Sufi lodges) and qalandari music, was released in 2011 by the Ava-ye Shebli institute.

🎵 The live album Ey Eshgh Hameh Bahaneh az Tost

Recorded in 2019, this work is the result of a live performance by the Hamdel Ensemble under the direction of Seyed Ali Jaberi in Manchester, with vocals by Sina Sarlak and accompanied by outstanding musicians of Iranian music.