for more information please visit: 
https://ashkanbehzadi.com

Contact: 
behzadi.ashkan@gmail.com

Ashkan Behzadi, a recipient of 2025 Ernst von Siemens Composer Prize and a 2021–2022 Guggenheim Fellow in Music Composition, is an Iranian-Canadian composer based in New York. He earned his DMA in composition at Columbia University, where he studied with Fred Lerdahl, George Lewis, and Georg Friedrich Haas. Prior to this, he graduated from McGill University with a bachelor’s degree in composition and music theory, studying composition with Chris Paul Harman and Brian Cherney. Ashkan also holds a bachelor’s degree in architecture from Tehran University, where, at the same time, he took composition and music theory lessons with Alireza Mashayekhi.
Ashkan’s music has been commissioned and performed by various international performers and ensembles, including Ensemble Recherche, TAK Ensemble, Oerknal Ensemble, Ensemble Mosaik, Yarn/Wire, JACK Quartet, Grossman Ensemble, Divertimento Ensemble, Ensemble Alternance, Ensemble UnitedBerlin, Exaudi, Ekmeles, Wet Ink, Talea Ensemble, and le Nouvel Ensemble Moderne (NEM). 
His work has also been recognized with awards, artist residencies, and participation in festivals such as the Koussevitzky Foundation, Fromm Foundation, New York State Council on the Arts, the Graham Sommer Second Prize, the Prix de Composition at Fontainebleau, the MacDowell Fellowship, the Civitella Ranieri Fellowship, the Divertimento Ensemble Composers Meeting, the Dialoge Festival at Stiftung Mozarteum Salzburg, the Manifeste Festival at IRCAM, and the CIRMMT New Music Series.
For the 2019–2020 academic year, Ashkan Behzadi joined the Department of Music at the University of Chicago as a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Center for Contemporary Composition. Since september 2023, he teaches at the Manhattan School of Music as a faculty member in Music Composition.
The issue of genre identity or genre-blurring, along with the dialectical relationship between modernist lyric poetry and contemporary music, has formed the core of Ashkan’s aesthetic concerns in recent years. Structurally, his music demonstrates a great attention to detail, conveying a miniaturist and gentle lyrical landscape. By employing techniques of allusion and pastiche as the foundation of his craft, his music ultimately seeks to invoke the collective memory of folklore music.

Arshan Najafi is a composer and live electro-acoustic performer specializing in sound, image, and words.
Recognized as an emerging talent of his generation, his works have been featured and published by Spectro Centre for New Music, Noise à Noise Records, Petrichor Records, Unexplained Sounds Group, Cold Spring Records, XOR Space, Texas Tech University, Yarava Music Group, Unerhörte Musik, Tehran International Electronic Music Festival, MUSLAB, SIMEC, ICMC Boston and Noise-Works.
He has studied music with Saba Alizadeh, Parsa Hadavi, Sohrab Motabar, and Ata Ebtekar, exploring complex musical structures with a focus on experimental soundscapes and musique concrète. Selected as a winner of Petrichor Records’ “Call for Young Iranian Composers,” he received mentorship from Chaya Czernowin, Arshia Samsaminia, Reza Vali, and Amin Sharifi.
Najafi has also been recognized in competitions and events, including the 7th Reza Korourian Electro-Acoustic Music Competition by Yarava Music Group, the”Electronic Nights” series at Texas Tech University, “Seyr” call for scores for saxophone and electronics by the Spectro Centre for New Music, MUSLAB After, ICMC Boston, Echofluxx 25 amongst others.
In 2022, his debut book, Twenty Wrong Turns, was published by Aso Publications in Tehran.
Also his debut on Noise-Works “Imaginary Crisis” was released on December 27th, 2024.

Juno-Nominated Composer, Pianist and Conductor based in Toronto, Canada.
For a full list of music visit the artist pages linked below:

Martyna Kosecka (*1989)
composer, conductor, performer, experimentalist, and researcher in new music. www.martynakosecka.com

Parsa Shomali is a Music Composer / Producer from Tehran, Iran based in Tbilisi, Georgia. He is Academically trained as "Composition & Music Theory" student in Tbilisi State Conservatory. Experimental electronic , contemporary classical and music for pictures are what he mostly does.

Iranian composer of media and concert music based in Vancouver BC
M.Mus. Composition • University of British Columbia

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