Sunday, June 20, 2010

7:00-9:00PM
Ziba Design Auditorium
810 NW Marshall St, Portland, OR 97209
Tickets $30 pre-sale at local stores and at the door. Space limited.

“Now listen to the reed as it is grieving. Positioning a reed flute called the Ney into a crook in the right side of his mouth, Omoumi blows ecstatic, passionate melodies that float up like smoke.” The Seattle Times.

Hossein Omoumi is a noted scholar and teacher of Persian music, having served on the National Conservatory and Tehran University in Tehran, Center for Oriental Music Studies of Sorbonne University in Paris, UCLA in Los Angeles and the Ethnomusicology Dept. of the University of Washington in Seattle.

He was born in Isfahan, Iran, and began his musical education singing with his father. At age 14 he began to study the Ney, the traditional reed flute of Iran. In 1962, Omoumi entered the National University of Iran to study architecture, but also played the ney in musical competitions, later entering the National Conservatory of Music in Tehran. His performance career has included appearances at many of the major festivals and concert halls in Europe and the United States, including San Francisco’s World Music Festival, UCLA’s Schoenberg Hall and Wadsworth Theater the Getty Center, in Los Angeles, the World Music Institute and Asia Society in New York, and Theatre de la Ville in Paris. His research on the making of the Ney and percussion opened new possibilities and introduced significant innovations to the Ney, Tombak and Daf.