Shahram Nazeri

Life and education

Shahram Nazeri was born on 18 February 1950 in Kermanshah, into a musical Kurdish family. He first learned Persian and Kurdish singing within his family, and at the age of eleven he sang on Iranian radio and television programmes.

He then studied the vocal radif, the core repertoire of Iran’s classical (dastgah) music, with Abdollah Davami, Nourali Boroumand, Abdolali Vaziri and Mahmoud Karimi.

Artistic career

In 1976 Nazeri won first prize in the first “Barbad” music competition, and in the late 1970s he worked with the Chavosh Ensemble, led by Mohammad Reza Lotfi, alongside Mohammad Reza Shajarian.

With the Shams Ensemble, led by Keykhosrow Pournazeri, he sang the album Sedaye Sokhan-e Eshgh (“The Sound of Love’s Words”, 1983), and his collaboration with the ensemble continued in works such as Heyrani (“Bewilderment”, 1996) and Motreb-e Mahtab-ru (“The Moon-Faced Minstrel”).

In 2008 the album Avaz-e Asatir (Shahnameh-ye Kordi) (“Song of the Myths – The Kurdish Shahnameh”; the Shahnameh is the Persian Book of Kings) was released with his vocals by the Avaz-e Bisotun institute. Its music was composed by Alireza Feyz Bashipour and Nazeri himself, and Feyz Bashipour and Nazeri’s son, Hafez Nazeri, perform it on tanbur, daf (frame drum) and dohol (bass drum). Nazeri has also worked with Farid Elhami on a project of Shahnameh recitation with the tanbur.

Style and standing

Nazeri sings both Persian classical vocal music and Kurdish music, and is known above all for singing the poetry of Rumi. The album Gol-e Sadbarg (“The Hundred-Petalled Rose”), built entirely on lesser-known ghazals (lyric poems) by Rumi, is one of his best-selling works.

In 2007, in recognition of a lifetime of artistic work in Iran’s traditional music, the French government awarded him the insignia of a Chevalier (knight) at the Théâtre de la Ville in Paris. His son, Hafez Nazeri, is a composer and instrumentalist and has worked with his father on many recordings and concerts.