KIARASH DAVOUDI, B.Sc. Eng. Musical Director 4, santour player, expert in traditional Persian and Sufi music

Kiarash Davoudi started his journey as a musician in Gorgan, his hometown in Iran, as a teenager, around 1987.

He acquired skills to play santour from Master Ramin Safaei, from basic to intermediate level. After he finished my secondary school, he decided to leave his hometown to seek better educational opportunities, a university. So, he moved to Tehran and continued o study Electrical engineering.

He continued his music lessons with Peyman Taheri, a talented musician who had studied with the Great Master, Majeed Kiani. Kiarash developed his knowledge and skills with the support from Mr Taheri between 1995 and 2000.

In 1998 Kiarash became a member of an Iranian music group led by Peyman Taheri. They performed in several concerts in Tehran. He became an educator in music in Tehran until 2010 when he migrated to Australia.

In Australia his first performance happened just after he arrived. A group of musicians was requested to perform on a memorial night for Mevlana Rumi, the great Persian poet at Doncaster Secondary College in December 2010. They were looking for a santour player to complete their group, as the previous santour player had a medical problem and couldn’t play that night. The group leader was Mr Shahryar Shams, who plays Comanche and violin.

The highlights of his music carrier have been mainly solo performances in Iranian poem reading gatherings, as well as solo concerts, until he met Hamid Khodakarami.

Hamid is a very talented singer with broad knowledge of folklore and traditional songs. Since the two of them have met, they had several performances together and with some other musicians. They played in “Love and Devotion” (2012), as well as at Latrobe University in 2014. He also had done other performances with Missagh Ensemble,  the most memorable one was in Mansfield Art Gallery in October 2016.

In 2016, Kiarash limited his activities to his own music group called “Hezar Dastan”. The group has 4 amateur musicians members so far.