Aida Shirazi
Iran

“Après…” was composed in 2018 for the 32 Bright Clouds project and received its World Premiere in Washington DC on January 24, 2019. It is connected to Beethoven’s Sonata no. 26 in E flat Major Op. 81a, “Les Adieux”.

Born and raised in Tehran, Iran, Aida Shirazi is a composer of acoustic and electroacoustic music.  Shirazi’s music is described as “well-made” and “affecting” by The New Yorker and “unusually creative” by San Francisco Classical Voice.  Her works for solo instruments, voice, ensemble, orchestra and electronics are often influenced by literature, language, and Iranian classical music. She is a co-founder and board member of the Iranian Female Composers Association (IFCA.)

Shirazi is the winner of Diaphonia and XelmYa+, ACIMC and Bilgi New Music Festival calls for scores.  Her music has been featured at MATA, New Music Gathering, Tehran Contemporary Music Festival, Klasik Keyifler and Sesin Yolculugu, festivals in the United States, Europe and Iran.  Shirazi’s works are performed by Jacob Greenberg (International Contemporary Ensemble,) Miranda Cuckson, Ensemble Dal Niente, Andrew McIntosh, Lucy Fitz Gibbon, Ryan McCullough, Alexa Renger, Emanuela Piemonti, Ellen Jewett, FOM (The Friends of MATA), Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, Empyrean Ensemble, Lydian String Quartet, and Bilkent Symphony Orchestra. She has attended workshops with the Switch~ Ensemble (2017), Interface Ensemble (2013) and Yurodny Ensemble (2016).

Currently, Shirazi is a Ph.D. student of composition at the University of California, Davis and works with Kurt Rohde.  She has studied with Pablo Ortiz, Mika Pelo, Yigit Aydin, Onur Turkmen, Tolga Yayalar, Mark Andre and Hooshyar Khayam.  She holds her B.A. in classical piano from Tehran University of Art (Iran), and her B.M. in music composition and theory from Bilkent University (Turkey). Shirazi studied santoor (traditional Iranian dulcimer) with Parissa Khosravi Samani.

Composer’s Note:

Reasons for admiring Beethoven always go beyond his music.  He was a humanist, an idealist, and a pacifist whose music conveyed the message of brotherhood, unity, and love.  Beethoven hoped, and perhaps imagined, that the human race will eventually achieve all these ideals, even if in times after him.  And here we are two centuries after him in a yet more divided, more war torn, and more unjust world!  Après… is written after Beethoven’s Les Adieux Sonata.  It borrows its essential musical ideas from the sonata, and the desire for a peaceful and united world from the beautiful mind and soul of its creator.