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.

Order new LP "Foreign Collections" with Gas Lab:
www.diggersfactory.com/vinyl/318343/…n-collections

New funky New Orleans band from Oslo.

Booking: Magnusredhot@gmail.com

Welcome to SWEET 17 ! 
Haruko Tanabe, Viola d'Amore, and Korneel Le Compte, Viennese Violone form a unique duo. As the only ensemble of its kind in the world, they have coupled these two exceptional and rare instruments which share very similar tunings. The open chord tuning produces a silvery, very resonant and harmonic sound colour with lots of overtones. The fact that the Viola d'Amore has six "sympathetic" strings underneath the fingerboard that resonate with the bowed strings, adds to the etherial and addictive sound of the ensemble.
The Viennese Violone, a type of double bass used during the Viennese classical period as a solo and chamber music instrument, has four or five gut strings and seven frets. These last few years it is celebrating its revival as a virtuosic instrument in ancient music. Indeed, most pieces written for it can only be played decently with the original Viennese Tuning in thirds and fourths.
The coupling of these two magnificent instruments is totally unique in music history. Although both existed side by side for a number of years, nobody seems to have thought of using them together.

Until now...

Enjoy SWEET 17 and enter a new and wonderful sonic experience !


SWEET 17　の世界にようこそ!

私たちはビオラダモーレとウイーン式チューニングビオローネによる、世界唯一のデュオです。

ビオラダモーレ　(奏者　田辺晴子　ベルギー王立歌劇団バイオリニスト)　愛のビオラ　は、その名のごとく甘い響きを持つ、１７、１８世紀に活躍した楽器です。
その複雑な構造　７弦と共鳴弦６本　そして優雅なゆえの小さい音量のため、現在はほとんど使用されなく
なってしまいました。主にニ長調で調弦をして演奏をします。
愛は盲目、といわれるため、楽器の先に目隠しをしてある女性の彫刻を施すのが慣例になっています。

ビオローネ　(奏者コルネル　ル　コント　ベルギー王立歌劇団コントラバシスト) 　という楽器は、現在のコントラバスの祖先にあたるものです。
わたしたちのデュオでは、ウイーン式チューニングにして使用しています。これはモーツアルト、ハイドンなどの
ウイーン古典派がコントラバスソロのために使っていたチューニングです。こちらも二長調です。

二長調に調弦された２台の楽器の奏でる世界に魅せられた私たちは、皆様にもこの素晴らしい響きをお届けしたいと思い、
デュオを結成しました。

どうぞお楽しみください!!!




Fredrik Blikeng is following