In 2013, I got selected among 5 Iranian sound artists, for Iran-UK Sonic Arts residency in London. In my return to Iran, they held me in Tehran airport, for 3 hours, investigating, and it was just the beginning...

Welcome back to your (Step)Motherland

Sound design for a monologue
عقربه ی سرگردان یک ساعت گمشده
Director: Mehdi Khodayi
Performer: Sahar Aghasi

All sounds in this track are original, except the clock.

The Lost Clock

Angels No.1
In connection with 12 paintings by Sahar Khorasani

Angels No.1

Baritone: Preston Masters
Piano: Xin Zhai

Unknown album (6/5/2017 5:47:47 PM)

Lullaby

Experimental music for 6 performers and 6 audience

There are 6 people, having an Iranian breakfast, and here is where the music coming from.

Unknown album (11/21/2017 10:07:08 AM)

7 Am Tehran Time Zone

This piece has only four notes: B, C, D, and E flat.
Performed by No Exit New Music Ensemble

Unknown album (10/16/2017 8:21:24 PM)

Growth

Pizzs and Harmonics (2017) is inspired by my improvisations on my violin to explore new timbres and textures. The piece uses four types of material: recorded pizzicatos, recorded natural harmonics, and two synthesized tones. The formal structure of the piece is inspired by Ysaye’s Sonata No.6 Op.27 for solo violin (1923). The exposition part is shaped by percussive sounds and filled with pizzicatos. The development part uses rather more melodic characteristics, shaped by harmonics and sustained tones.

Pizzs And Harmonics

Conducted by Malik Khalfani
Performed at Cleveland State University, 2018
Decadence is a spectral piece composed for chamber orchestra. It is based on the above painting/graphic sketch, a method I frequently used to compose, specifically for pieces of significant scope and length. With such pieces, it is difficult to find an effective notation system that is comprehensible for the performers. The final score, Decadence, ended up having a specific and unique music notation using a combination of three different systems: the traditional notation system following a meter, graphic notation, and an un-metrical notation system following given time durations.

The score contains unique instructions for the performers throughout the piece to accommodate the above notation complexity. The piece is divided into twelve segments, without interruption: Clouds and Horizon, Pillars in Fog, Bloody River, River Parting, Fog of Insects, Bloody Fog, Bloody Scratches, Broken Bloody Crystal, Bloody Horizon, Foggy Bloody Horizon, Foggy Horizon, and Crumbling Pillars in Bloody Fog.

Unknown album (5/3/2018 11:01:13 AM)

Decadence

"Unknown" is a metaphoric piece of the term known in Jungian psychology as the "shadow aspect". The shadow aspect stays almost unknown to us, hidden deep down inside the subconscious, and when it appears we will be defenseless. Here I am sharing with you one of my most aggressive unknown shadows.

Performance at UCSD Concert Hall:
Teresa Diaz, Bass Flute
David Aguila, Trumpet
Ilana Waniuk, Violin

Unknown

for Del Sol String Quartet
performed at UC Irvine

Rock Cloud

Skeches has seven sections in connection with seven photos, illustrating various abstract sonic textures. These photos are my timbral expressions, each presenting its own timbre, while they are formally connected together. The visual texture modulates from the first photo gradually to the last one, respectively; dots, rough, plain, and smooth.

Performed by No Exit New Music Ensemble 2018

Sketches

Flute: Sean Gabriel
Cleveland State University Drinko Hall, 2017

Composed in 2013

Water Story

Nasim Khorassani is an Iranian composer, currently studying her PhD in Music Composition with Katharina Rosenberger and Marcos Balter at the University of California San Diego. She studied for her second masters' with Andrew Rindfleisch and Greg D'Alessio at Cleveland State University. The University of Tehran was where she gained her first master's and studied composition with Mohammad Reza Tafazzoli, Kiawasch Sahebnassagh, and Sara Abazari. Mainly as a self-taught composer, Nasim started composing since the age of eight. However, her works did not receive any performance in Iran, until 2016 when she moved to the United States. Since then, she has received various commissions from No Exit New Music Ensemble, Del Sol String Quartet, Patchwork Duo, Zeitgeist, Loadbang, and Silkroad. 
During her life in Iran, she managed to create and organize a group of music students that received the DAAD Study Visit scholarship in 2009, as the first Iranian group. In 2012, she met with Peter Ablinger and Klaus Lang in Tehran and performed their music. In 2013, Nasim became among five selected sound artists from Iran, for Iran-UK Sonics residency in London, where she joined various workshops by Keith Rowe and Chris Watson and had her first experimental improvisation with Veryan Weston at Queen Elizabeth Hall. The trip to Germany as her introduction to modern dance expanded throughout her life, influencing the style of music composition she follows today.

Nasim Khorassani

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