22th International Guitar Festival Fribourg
Mai 1st - 9, 2009

Eglise St-Jean

Hamid Motebassem (Composer and Tar & Setar Player)

Iran

Hamid Motebassem was born in 1958 in Mashad, Iran. He was raised in a musical family, where his brother was a violinist and his first teacher was his father, Ali Motebassem who played the Tar. His subsequent teachers included the masters Habiballah Salehi, Zeydallah Toloie, Houshang Zarif, Hossein Alizadeh and Mohammad Reza Lotfi. Motebassem studied in the Tehran School of Art and the Conservatory of Persian Music.

He was a member of the Chavosh Cultural Center where he taught music. One of the original members of Aref Ensemble, he founded Dastan Ensemble as well as Ensemble Chakavak upon immigration to Germany in 1986.

Hamid Motebassem is the founder of the Society of Tar and Setar and has since 1994 organized annual seminars dedicated to the two instruments. He has performed on numerous albums of contemporary Iranian composers as well as on all the released works of Dastan Ensemble since 1992.

Discography: Bamdad; The Scent of Norooz; The Song of the Sea; Saz-e No, Avaz-e No; Dastan Trio; Dastan Duet; Hanaie; Shurideh (Winner of the title “Musical Shock“ in the music journal, Le Monde and the recipient of the 2003 Best Music of the Year Award from the French Ministry of Culture); Gol-e Behesht; Maah Aroos; Loolian; Gheyzhak-e Koli; Be Name Gol-e Sorkh.

Ramin Azimian (Bamtar)

Iran

Ramin Azimian was born in 1976 in Ahwas Iran. His Father whom played the violin thaught him the fundaments of playing the violin at the age of 5 years. In the year of 1985 he immigrated to Germany.

Later on he became a member of the ensemble Saba, which was founded by his Father Ali Azimian and Behzad Roushanpoor. In that ensemble he got the chance to play the Tar and felt in love with it immediately and took a few lessons by Majid Derachshani. In the year of 1995 he went to the U.S to study computer science and graduated in year 2001. Afterwards he returned to Germany and started taking lessons at a higher level by Composer, Tar and Setar virtues Hamid Motebassem, by whom he has been studding the repertoire of traditional Persian music “radif“ and Composition.

For the last few years he has been involved in three Ensembles named Small Mezrab, Mezrab and Pardis that are founded by Hamid Motebassem, where he playes the Tar and Bamtar (Bass Tar).

Pejman Zahedian (Setar)

Iran

Pejman Zahedian was born in 1986 in Tehran. He was raised in an art loving family, where he became attracted to the Iranian music. He started learning music with playing santour. After 2 years when he became 14, he decided to change his instrument into setar.

After immigration to The Netherlands in 2000, he met Hamid Motebassem one of the greatest masters and composers of Persian music and he began to study the Persian repertoire of music (Radif).

He performs currently in ensembles Mezrab and PARDIS under leading of Hamid Motebassem.

Pasha Karami (Tombak)

Iran

Pasha Karami was born in 1979 in Shiraz, an ancient and cultural city of Iran. His tremendous ability of feeling the rhythm convinced everybody about his talent. Therefore in 1993 he became the disciple Navid Afghah, the master of Tombak, who had created a new and modern of playing Tombak. Soon he took the leading place among Afghah's students and started teaching lessons in several music schools of Shiraz. Pasha won the first prize of young Tombak players in festival of music in Shiraz, in 2002.

His knowledge of western classical music and skills of Tar and Tambour instruments playing resulted in successful mixes of Tombak and different styles such as Iranian Traditional music, Flamenco, Indian and Fusion.

Pasha's style of playing Tombak is unique - Pasha masters various complicated rhythms and creates music from them. His Tombak is not just percussion, but a self-sufficient instrument. Pasha's solos are dynamic, expressive and melodic and have conquered hearts of many listeners. Currently Pasha lives in the Netherlands where, he is actively involved in the Iranian as well as multicultural music activities: he regularly performs with the Mezrab ensemble which represents the traditional Iranian music; Synergy World Rhythm the band, consisting of the professional of the various percussions; Beduin, where jazz and world music meet each other. Next to these projects, he gives workshops in many countries and he has taken part in several percussion festivals in Europe.