Siavash Ashrafi
Composer, maqam expert and tanbur player
Siavash Ashrafi is a composer, maqam expert and tanbur player from Kangavar who played alongside Seyed Khalil Alinejad in the Shams and Baba Taher ensembles. He plays in both the Dalahu (Guran) and the Sahneh styles. A close relative of Yadollah Ashrafi, he carries on Yadollah’s way of playing.
Together with Kambiz Mohitmafi, Fereydoun Haghighi and a few others, he is counted among the masters with a style of their own who have received less recognition than they deserve.
Learning by ear
Ashrafi began playing the tanbur at 13 or 14. Living in a provincial town with no teacher, he learned the style of Darvish Amir Hayati from his cassettes. He says he practised through the night to master Hayati’s shor technique, playing until his nails bled. Years later, when Hayati visited the region and heard him play, he encouraged him, saying he had never heard anyone play this style so sweetly.
Ashrafi believes listening matters more than watching in learning the tanbur.
Shams and Baba Taher
In 1988/89 he met Seyed Khalil Alinejad, who invited him to play tanbur at the 22 Bahman festival in an ensemble led by Keykhosrow Pournazeri; he then did much work with the Shams and Baba Taher ensembles. He remembers Seyed Khalil as a teacher of both music and ethics. With the ensemble he also performed in Sweden and Norway.
Teaching and views on the tanbur
Ashrafi is selective about students and cares about their character, but leaves fees to what each student can afford, saying that “music is not for sale”. He sees the tanbur as a ritual instrument, “a breed apart”, whose structure should not be changed and which should stay untouched — a view he says Seyed Khalil shared. He also plays zarb and daf.
Video
Sources: his profile on tanbur-music.ir, based on Forough Askari’s interview with him in the newspaper Isfahan-e Ziba (no. 1618).