Composer : Ali Naqi Vaziri
Vocalist : Gholam Hoseyn Banan
Born in 1887 in Tehran, Ali-Naqi Vaziri showed a keen interest in music and painting from his early childhood. Like his father and four brothers he started a career in military service. He began playing tar at the age of 15 with his uncle, Hoseyn-Ali Khan and very soon he set him behind and devoted all his time in practicing the instrument. Yavar-Khan, a military band master, taught him the elements of western notation and then he began to study basic musical theory and principles of harmony with a French priest who was in Iran and taught at Saint-Louis, a French missionary school in Tehran. He then got acquainted with Darvish-Khan and Mirza Hoseyn-Qoli, and made transcriptions of radif in collaboration with Mirza Abdollah, of them only a transcription in Chahargah has survived. For a certain period of time, he was also engaged in transcribing radif of Mirza Hoseyn-Qoli - an unfinished project. It has been said that after doing morning physical exercises, Colonel Vaziri used to go to the attic of his house and practiced tar till the mid-night. However he abandoned tar playing due to a long journey to Europe to study music in Germany. Returning to Iran, he founded a Music Conservatory in Tehran (1923). In addition to Persian dastgahi instruments, he taught western musical elements such as sight-reading, sight-singing, basics of rhythm and other aspects of theoretical music. Many of renowned musicians and instrumentalists of the next generation graduated from this Conservatory, to name a few Ruhollah Khaleqi, Hoseyn Sanjari, Abdol'ali Vaziri, Abolhasan Saba, Hoseyn Gol-e Golab, Ali-Mohammad Khadem-Misaq, Musa Marufi and many others. Vaziri also founded "Club Musical" where he gave regular weekly concerts with his pupils. In 1925 he gave a series of lectures on art and esthetics. He was appointed the head of conservatory in 1928 and because of his efforts, hymn-singing was included in the curriculum of primary schools, Until the outbreadk of World War II he held the position and then he was dismissed by the government authorities. Vaziri wrote several books on music and taught for a while course of esthetics in Tehran University. He died in the autumn of 1979 in Tehran.
Published [27/12/2004]