Bio:
Reza Filsoofi is a multi-instrumentalist, singer, and composer, born in Tehran, Iran.
Filsoofi commenced his musical journey in Iran, under the tutelage of master musicians such as Zarrabian, Shoaari and Arash Farhangfar and under the supervision of the great master Naser Farhangfar. Filsoofi plays santoor and setar, along with principal percussive instruments such as daf and tonbak.
Filsoofi has performed with masters such as Davood Azad, Faramarz Aslani, and Ardeshir Farah. His collaboration with Davood Azad in 2015 in the Asia Society and Museum in New York City and in the Sivanasda Ashram Yoga Retreat in the Bahamas have been his milestone professional achievements.
Since Filsoofi moved to the United Sates in 2001 he has been actively teaching and performing in different venues. His versatile musical styles combined with his expansive knowledge of different classical instruments, have given him opportunities to collaborate with artists and musicians in various projects such as World and Melody with Soheila Ghodstinat (Iranian actress and playwright); Roshana Nofret (American dancer and choreographer) in the Sephardic Music Project; Susana Behar (Cuban Singer) and Jose Louis De la Paz (Spanish composer and Flamenco Guitar Player), the Trio FEZ; the Middle-Eastern Music Performance with Joe Zeytounian (American-Armenian Musician) and Myriam Eli (Cuban Performer).
Filsoofi currently lives in Nashville. He is the director of the Caravan Ensemble which promotes Iranian music and culture in the United States.
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These are pathways, originating in the sprawling cultural matrix of Brazil (Indigenous, African, Sephardic and then Ashkenazik, Arab, European, Asian...), integrating cultural matrixes worldwide.
Matrix ground zero is the Recôncavo of Bahia...virtually unknown center of gravity circumscribing Bahia's Bay of All Saints...end of voyage for more enslaved human beings than any other such throughout all of human history...birthplace of some of the most physically & spiritually uplifting music ever made. Many countries are happier than Brazil, but none are more joyous.
"Dear Sparrow: I am thrilled to receive your email! Thank you for including me in this wonderful matrix."
—Susan Rogers: Personal recording engineer for Prince, inc. "Purple Rain", "Sign o' the Times", "Around the World in a Day"... Director of the Berklee Music Perception and Cognition Laboratory
I'm Pardal here in Brazil (that's "Sparrow" in English). The deep roots of this project are in Manhattan, where Allen Klein (managed the Beatles and The Rolling Stones) called me about royalties for the estate of Sam Cooke... where Jerry Ragovoy (co-wrote Time is On My Side, sung by the Stones; Piece of My Heart, Janis Joplin of course; and Pata Pata, sung by the great Miriam Makeba) called me looking for unpaid royalties... where I did contract and licensing for Carlinhos Brown's participation on Bahia Black with Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock...
...where I rescued unpaid royalties for Aretha Franklin (from Atlantic Records), Barbra Streisand (from CBS Records), Led Zeppelin, Mongo Santamaria, Gilberto Gil, Astrud Gilberto, Airto Moreira, Jim Hall, Wah Wah Watson (Melvin Ragin), Ray Barretto, Philip Glass, Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd for his interest in Bob Marley compositions, Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam and others...
...where I worked with Earl "Speedo" Carroll of the Cadillacs (who went from doo-wopping as a kid on Harlem streetcorners to top of the charts to working as a janitor at P.S. 87 in Manhattan without ever losing what it was that made him special in the first place), and with Jake and Zeke Carey of The Flamingos (I Only Have Eyes for You)... stuff like that.
Yeah this is Bob's first record contract, made with Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd of Studio One and co-signed by his aunt because he was under 21. I took it to Black Rock to argue with CBS' lawyers about the royalties they didn't want to pay (they paid).
MATRIX MUSICAL
The Matrix was built below among some of the world's most powerfully moving music, some of it made by people barely known beyond village borders. Or in the case of Sodré, his anthem A MASSA — a paean to Brazil's poor ("our pain is the pain of a timid boy, a calf stepped on...") — having blasted from every radio between the Amazon and Brazil's industrial south, before he was silenced (that's me below left, with David Dye & Kim Junod for U.S. National Public Radio) ... The Matrix started with Sodré, with João do Boi, with Roberto Mendes, with Bule Bule, with Roque Ferreira... music rooted in the sugarcane plantations of Bahia. Hence our logo (a cane cutter).