Artist

Tahmoures Pournazeri is an instrumentalist and composer whose creativity and inventiveness have marked him as a distinguished artist of his generation. He has been acclaimed by the United States Senate for the music he composed for the International Norooz Celebration, and he has collaborated with such artists as Joan Baez, Shujaat Hussain Khan and the great master Mohammad Reza Shajarian. He has composed music for fifteen recordings covering six genres of music, participated in the Avignon Festival at age 15, won first honors among Young Iranian Talents at age 14, and began performing with the Shams Ensemble at the most celebrated concert halls of Iran at age 12.

Tahmoures was born in February 1977 into the musical Pournazeri family. His father Kaykhosro Pournazeri is known as the father of Sufi music and of the tanbour; his grandfather Haji Khan was a distinguished tar player; and his passionate, compassionate mother is fondly remembered by her family as their primary supporter. Tahmoures’s fascination with music is a result of growing up in this environment. At a time when even the simplest musical performance would be discouraged by the government, and television programs were not permitted to broadcast the playing of instruments, the young Tahmoures had music and musical instruments as his only means of play and entertainment–and the poems of Rumi and Hafez were (and remain) his storybooks and guides.

Along with his father Kaykhosro and his brother Sohrab, Tahmoures leads and directs the thirty-year-old Shams Ensemble, one of Iran’s foremost musical groups. He plays all the major Persian instruments–concentrating especially on the tar, setar, tanbour, barbat and daf–and has recently begun to experiment with and compose for the saqhar and the barbod, newly invented instruments designed by Ostad Shajarian.

His knowledge of Iranian traditional and tribal music and the techniques of Western composition have enabled him to create a new and original style. Tahmoures continues to compose mystical music, modern Iranian classical music, Kurdish music, symphonic music and modern fusion. He also has extensive experience in the field of music recording.