Simorgh Ensemble

About Us:

Ali Nourbakhsh: Daf & Tonbak

Ali Nourbakhsh was born in 1981 in Iran. He grew up in a family that was very much in love with Iranian traditional music and inspired Ali to be a traditional musician. He started to play Daf and Tonbak at an early age and dabbled in other percussion instruments. He also tried Setar, but soon realised he was very much in love with rhythm and decided to specialise in playing Daf.

In Iran, Ali dedicated most of his time to teaching Daf and performing live with sufi musicians. He had the chance to perform with number of Iranian master musicians such as Hassan Nahid and Davoud Azad.

In 2001, Ali moved to London, England, to continue his higher education in Computer Science at City University. Since then he has been involved with many music projects in the UK. He has been a key member of Radif Ensemble and co-founded Simorgh Band in 2003, with whom he regularly performs. He has also performed with BBC Symphony Orchestra along side Dastan Ensemble.

Amin Fouladi: Barbat & Vocal

Amin Fouladi was born in Tehran in 1983, and came to London in 1989. The first instrument Amin played was the guitar at age 15 and he was in a rock band from the ages of 16 to 18 playing many live performances in local venues in South London. For two years after that Amin was in a Hip Hop group with a similar success rate. During the past three years he has performed two live jazz/fusion concerts in Tehran with well known up and coming Iranian musicians, The latest of which was in 2003, in Talare Farabi in Tehran, with Hamzeh Yeganeh (His musical mentor throughout the years) and Kaveh Sarvarian notable teacher and performer of ney, with an interesting fusion of Dastgah music and Jazz. Amin purchased his first Iranian instrument, a setar, around 4 years ago in so as to have an instrument that will play microtonal scales in order to start learning about Iranian Music theory. Through learning the Iranian Dastgahs from uncountable experiences of listening and imitating, he achieved a valuable self taught knowledge. Through his research Amin also have an overall knowledge of the Turkish Makam and Arabic Magham modal systems. 2 years ago he purchased a Barbat and have since been trying to advance his knowledge and technique of the instrument. Amin also have a musical project in which he fuse the urban music which was the basis of his musical growth, with traditional and folk Iranian music, in an overall popular music structure, with simple lyrics relating to every day life. At present three of his songs have been played several times on BBC persian radios music dedicated show 'shabe haftom'.

Ehsan Parvizian: Tar

Ehsan Parvizian was born in Ramsar, Mazandaran province. He got involved in music and TAR when he was ten years old. As a teenager, he began studying the traditional classical music with the great master Fereydoun Hafezi and later with mr Tinoush Bahrami in London. In 2001, Ehsan was in Royal Grammar School (UK) music society when he performed his first major public concert. He graduated from Bath University which he studied Aerospace Engineering. He is currently works for Citgroup in London.

Parham Bahadoran: Guitar, Keyboard, Percussion & Vocal

Parham Bahadoran was born in Tehran in 1986. He learned to play the electronic keyboard at the age of five, the classical guitar and piano by the age of fourteen, and the electric guitar by the age of sixteen; while becoming familiar with Setaar, drums & percussion and Daf. He had his first live performance at the age of five, and his first three pop concerts in the Town Hall and Technical University of Semnan in 2001 and 2002, followed by a fourth one in Tehran at the Amir Kabir University of Technology in 2003. He joined Simorgh in 2004, and has continued his musical activity as a member of the ensemble since. Parham enjoys a diverse range of musical tastes, but believes Persian music to hold a far greater potential for conveying a universal musical message; than has been “historically presumed”, or "traditionally allocated" to it. He is a student of Computer Science at the University College London.

Zartosht Safari : Ney

Zartosht Safari was born in 1982 in the beautiful city of Shiraz. He grew up with poems of great Hafez and Saadi. Persian traditional music played a big role in his childhood, as he always said "I could listen to Ostad Shajarian for ever". Zartosht fell in love with the Ney in the age of 16 by listening to Ostad Mohammad Mousavi's Ney. So he started to get lessons from his older brother and two years latter under supervision of Mr Tanouri he learned the notations of this instrument. In the summer of 2005, Zartosht came to London and got involved with number of groups that practice Persian traditional music such as Radif and Simorgh.

Saleh Zarei Lael Abadi : Bass Guitar

Saleh Zarei Lael Abadi was born in 1980 in Behbahan, south Iran. He grew up in Karaj, near the Iranian capital Tehran, and started his musical career there. He was first influenced by Rock music and decided to play guitar, searching hard to find styles and musicians to learn from. Soon after he met Iranian guitarist Shahram Chaparian who became his teacher. At that time Saleh realised that he loved music more than anything else and began working as a musical director and producer. Gradually he realised his talent for playing Bass guitar and chose to focus on it as his main instrument, studying with one of Iran's greatest bass players, Kasra Saboktakin. That was 8 years ago.

As a bass player he challenges himself by working with different musical genres and styles as much as he can, and this is reflected in the range of bands that he has played with. Saleh sees himself as a perpetual student and believes that the study of music never finishes. As such, he moved to London in April 2007 to continue his musical carrier and is currently studying contemporary music at the renowned TECH MUSIC SCHOOL (Guitar-x).

Nicholas Barron : Drums and Sound Engineer

Born in 1983, Nick grew up in South East London learning Drums and Tuned Percussion under the tutelage of percussionist Chris Nall and session drummer Colin Woolway. But it was his interest in recording that first brought him into contact with Amin and Iranian music. Together they collaborated on various projects fusing Western Urban styles with Iranian influences.

Nick trained as a recording engineer at Alchemea College in London going on to work at Grand Central Studios and Capital FM. He now works as a freelance location recording and mastering engineer under the name Tenth Egg Productions.

He first performed with the Simorgh ensemble in 2007 for Rumi Rap at London's South Bank Centre.