Alireza Mashayekhi is one of the pioneers of multiculturalism in music. He was born in Tehran, Iran in 1940. After completing his studies with Hanns Jelinek and Karl Schiske (composition) at the Akademie fuer Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Vienna, he went to Utrecht, The Netherlands, to pursue his study of electronic and computer music at the Institute for Sonology, which included attending lectures by Gottfried Michael Koenig.
His many years of association with Hanns Jelinek encouraged him to explore a wide spectrum of 20th century music. This and his fondness of the Iranian culture were the cornerstones of his artistic development. Mashayekhi's compositions have tended towards three major directions: pieces that are directly inspired by Iranian music (e.g. Symphony No. 5), compositions that are not directly related to Iranian music (e.g. Concerto for Violin and Orchestra), and multicultural compositions (e.g. Symphony No. 9 and the electronic composition East-West).
Alireza Mashayekhi, who has his own philosophical thesis on music, believes that we can discover truth only through multilogical structures of artistic thought, this being the only way we can encompass the contradictions that "truth" carries within itself. He is professor of composition at Tehran University.
Alireza Mashayekhi the Founding Father of Modern Persian Music
