Fouzie Majd
Fozié Majd was born in Berlin, attended schools in Tehran and England, and began composing on piano before she had her first lessons at the age of six. Her first public work, at the age of fifteen, was commissioned by Moreton Hall School, England, a Scéne de ballet which was reviewed in several newspapers, including the Manchester Guardian. At seventeen, she appeared as pianist in London, Central Hall, in the Council for Education and World Citizenship musical evening, affiliated to the United Nations.
After receiving her Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Edinburgh, she went to Paris where she studied with Nadia Boulanger on a French government grant. The performance of Tuned to the night (Shabkuk) for string orchestra (1973) at the Shiraz Festival of Arts, commissioned by NIRTV Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Catherine Comet, was reviewed in the Nouvel Observateur, where she was acclaimed as an “Iranian avant-garde” with the task of “elucidating certain structures of Iranian traditional music in the light of most recent conquests” (Maurice Fleuret, 1973). Hell is but the sparkle of our futile suffering(1976) for string Orchestra, was performed at the tenth Shiraz Festival of Arts by NIRTV Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Yvo Malec.
Her other compositions include music for the two films of Fereydoun Rahnema: Siavash in Persepolis (awarded the John Epstein prize at the Festival of Locarno,1966), and The son of Iran is without news of his mother(1976); the music for the film The winding doll (1968) by Goli Khalatbari; the ballet Stone Statue for orchestra (1968); Iranian Suite, for Orchestra (1970); Mantra (1970), for string orchestra and voices; the music for the play A knight came out in red directed by Arby Ovanessian, in Persepolis; The song of Leyli, for solo string and ney (1979).
Between 1972 and 1978, she undertook research and massive recording of the music of the provinces, travelling to remote villages, mainly in Khorasan and Baluchestan. After the Islamic Revolution in February 1979, she began teaching the piano and music theory, but there was a silence of nine years before she again began composing. In 1988 she performed a new version of the piano piece, Dialogue88, in Tehran, and continued with more piano compositions and several songs in bhajan form.
On the occasion of the International Women’s Day, held in New York (March 2007), two of her piano pieces were performed by Eric Huebner, along with other works by Sofia Gubaidulina (Russia), Eka Chabashvili (Georgia), Kelly-Marie Murphy (Canada) and Beta Moon (US). The Dreamland Quartet received its first performance in New York (2008) by members of the Bãrbad Chamber Ensemble. Her most recent works are Here And there, for eleven instruments, performed by the Laboratorium Ensemble(September 2016), in Hanover, Germany, commissioned by the Hannover Society for New Music, headed by Joachim Heintz; and Faraghi(In Absentia), for violin and violoncello, commissioned and performed by the Nivak Ensemble (May 2017) in Rudaki Hall, Tehran. The United Berlin Ensemble has commissioned Majd for a new work to be performed in Berlin in April 2019, in the context of nights devoted to Iranian composers’ contemporary music.
Majd’s publications include four booklets of piano music, three CDs of her compositions; Nafir Nameh, essays on Iranian music, and other articles published by the Mahoor Publications, Tehran. Hamãni, a collection of four piano pieces, is due for publication. Dialogue 88, for piano, is included in the CD, 100 Years of Iranian Piano Music, played by Layla Ramezan, Paraty, Harmonia Mundi (2016).