Hesam Abedini

Hesam Abedini is an Iranian-American performer, composer, improviser, educator, producer, and filmmaker residing in Irvine, California. His work crosses the boundaries between idioms as wide as Western contemporary music, classical Persian music, free improvisation, and computer music. He is the founding member of the Sibarg, an intercultural creative music ensemble that combines traditional Persian music and Jazz. Hesam’s music have been performed by various musicians and ensembles such as, the JACK Quartet, selected members of the Atlas Ensemble, Del Sol Quartet, Loadbang, Miolina, Eclipse Quartet, New Mexico Contemporary Ensemble, Amalgama Ensemble, Sunflower, and Mark Dresser’s Bass Ensemble. He is the winner of the New Mexico Contemporary Ensemble’s 2nd Annual Call for Scores in 2018.
Since 2011, under the supervision of Dr. Hossein Omoumi, Hesam has researched on classical Persian music and directed the NEA and Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute-sponsored Documentary film “From Isfahan to Irvine”. His film has been screened and archived in the Library of Congress, and UCLA Ethnomusicology Archive. Hesam is a graduate of the Tehran Music Conservatory and holds his B.A. in Music Composition with honors from the University of California, San Diego. He studied music composition with Lei Liang, Chinary Ung, Anthony Davis and improvisation with Mark Dresser.
Hesam completed a PhD in Integrated Composition, Improvisation and Technology (ICIT) at the University of California, Irvine as a Roshan and Provost PhD Fellow under the supervision of Prof. Christopher Dobrian. He was an Associate Faculty in music at Saddleback College where he taught music composition, harmony and musicianship for two years. Hesam has also designed and taught Music of Modern Iran at the University of California, Irvine. Currently, he is an adjunct faculty in Music at Soka University of America.