Tahmoures Pournazeri

Tahmoures Pournazeri (born 8 February 1977 in Kermanshah) is an outstanding Iranian musician, composer and instrumentalist. He comes from a musical family: he is the son of Keykhosrow Pournazeri and the elder brother of Sohrab Pournazeri. Tahmoures is regarded as one of the influential figures of contemporary Iranian music, and in his works he has crossed the boundary between traditional Iranian music and global forms.

He plays the tar and setar (long-necked lutes), tanbur, barbat, daf (frame drum) and divan, and is also familiar with instruments such as the santur, tombak, kamancheh (spike fiddle), dotar and ney. His first official work as a composer was the album Ava-ye Baran (“The Sound of Rain”), released before he turned 20; in this work his innovative setar techniques were heard for the first time in Iranian music.

Over more than three decades of artistic work, Tahmoures Pournazeri has collaborated as a composer, performer and arranger with Iran’s most prominent singers and instrumentalists, and has performed in Iran, Europe, America and Asia.

Among his notable collaborations are joint projects with Mohammad Reza Shajarian, Homayoun Shajarian and the Shams Ensemble. His works often blend the mystical and ritual melodies of western Iran with contemporary music and global forms.

Notable activities and works

• Album Ava-ye Baran (1995): his first venture into composition, with the voice of Bijan Kamkar.

• Album Diyar-e Mehr (“Land of Affection”, 2005): with the voice of Farshad Jamali, based on poems by Rumi, Partow Kermanshahi, Akhavan Sales and Hamid Mosaddegh.

• Album Penhan Cho Del (“Hidden Like the Heart”, 2007): with Hamidreza Nourbakhsh and the Shams Ensemble.

• Album Sarzamin-e Khorshid (“Land of the Sun”, 2009): a mystical work based on poems by Rumi and Iqbal Lahori.

• Album Afsaneh Sho (“Become a Legend”, 2010): a joint project of Iranian and Indian artists, including Shujaat Husain Khan and Arunangshu Chaudhury; a fusion of Iranian and Indian music.

• Album Na Fereshteham Na Sheytan (“I Am Neither Angel Nor Devil”, 2013): with the voice of Homayoun Shajarian; one of the most successful works of Iranian fusion music in the 2010s.

• Album Bar Sama-ye Tanbur (“To the Sama of the Tanbur”, sama being the Sufi ritual of listening and dance; 2014): a collaboration of the Shams Ensemble, Alireza Ghorbani and the Pournazeri family in honour of the tanbur tradition.

• Album Tanblues (from “tanbur” and “blues”, 2020): an innovative experiment linking the ancient music of the tanbur with Western blues, together with Josette Bushell-Mingo.

Performances and concerts

Over the years of his career Tahmoures Pournazeri has given numerous concerts and tours in Iran and abroad, including:

• The concert performance Baz Amadam (“I Have Returned”) (Tehran, 2023) – a fusion work featuring Sahar Mohammadi Boroujerdi and the dance-theatre group “Harekat” (“Movement”), which was cancelled because of opposition from the authorities.

• The concert show Si Sad (“Three Hundred”) (Saadabad Palace, 2024).

• The international tour Iran-e Man (“My Iran”) in Iran, Europe and Canada, with the voice of Homayoun Shajarian (2017–2019).

• The concert Chera Rafti (“Why Did You Leave?”) in Iran and Europe (2014–2016).

• Appearances at international festivals of mystical music in Konya, Belgium and France.

• A joint performance with Mohammad Reza Shajarian and Sohrab Pournazeri on America’s National Public Radio (NPR).

Artistic approach

Tahmoures Pournazeri has always emphasised dialogue between the music of East and West. His works are a blend of mystical melodies, classical Persian poetry and the modern structures of world music. In his works he strives to turn the language of Iranian music into an international idiom and to build a bridge between tradition and modernity.