Masoud Arzanlou, an outstanding tanbur player, composer and tanbur maker, was born in 1979 in Tehran. From early childhood he was captivated by the heavenly melodies of the tanbur, and from the age of ten, at the end of the 1980s, he began to study the instrument seriously. Arzanlou received his first lessons from great tanbur masters of the Sahneh region, such as the late Seyed Khalil Alinejad and Master Taher Yarveysi. Later, to broaden his musical knowledge, he studied the tar (a long-necked lute) and the setar (a smaller long-necked lute) with Iraj Dashtizadeh and Hossein Mehrani.
His deep love of Iran’s mystical and traditional music led his artistic path towards research and performance in the field of spiritual music. Besides playing, he is also skilled in making tanburs, and he is one of the few artists who have forged an artistic and technical bond between performance and instrument making.
Among Master Arzanlou’s most important works and performances are Toghyan (“Rebellion”), Fakhteh (“Turtledove”), Zemestan-e Sakht (“Harsh Winter”), Heyran (“Bewildered”), Shahri dar Shab (“A City at Night”), Pezhvak (“Echo”), Avar (“Rubble”) and Khiyal (“Imagination”). Numerous albums of his have also been released, including:
Sedaye Akhar-e Donya (“The Sound of the End of the World”)
Jayi Digar (“Somewhere Else”)
Tamam-e Rah ba To Budam (“I Was with You All the Way”)
Khabam Nemibarad (“I Can’t Sleep”)
Hamaseh-ye Dad (“The Epic of Justice”)
For a time Arzanlou was a member of the great Baba Taher Ensemble, led by the late Seyed Khalil Alinejad, an ensemble regarded as one of the largest tanbur orchestras in the history of contemporary Iranian music. He later founded the Ghoghnus (“Phoenix”) Tanbur Ensemble, and he currently continues his artistic work with the Bang-e Nowruz Ensemble (“The Call of Nowruz”).
Among his outstanding works is the piece Nafir (“The Outcry”), an epic composition featuring tanbur playing by Pouria Seyhun, Afshin Saeb and Peyman Fayyaz, released on the album Hamaseh-ye Dad.
From the perspective of research and innovation, Master Masoud Arzanlou is regarded as one of the leading figures of tanbur music. His deep knowledge of the ancient tanbur maqams (the traditional melodies of the tanbur repertoire) and his technical understanding of plucked string instruments such as the tar and setar have laid the ground for a new, epic style in contemporary Iranian tanbur playing.
He is one of those artists who have built a brilliant bridge between authenticity and innovation, and with a searching and creative spirit he has become an enduring figure in the history of Iran’s mystical music.
