Hossein Omoumi

= Training =

Hossein Omoumi, born in 1944 in Isfahan, Iran, is a renowned master of classical Persian music. He received his first musical training from his father. At age fourteen, fascinated by the sound of the ney (reed flute) and by the great ney player, Master Hassan Kassai, he began his own studies of the instrument. He entered the National Conservatory of Music in Tehran in 1962 to study Vocal Radif and theory under Mahmoud Karimi and Farhad Fakhreddini. Since 1968 he has continued to study the technique of playing the ney and the repertoire of the school of Esfahan with Hassan Kassai.

Teaching career

Omoumi is a noted scholar and teacher of Persian music. He has taught at the National Conservatory in Tehran, the Faculty of Arts at the University of Tehran, the Center for the Preservation and Diffusion of Persian Music in Iran, the CEMO at the Sorbonne, UCLA, and the University of Washington in Seattle. He is now Maseeh Professor in Performing Arts (Classical Persian music) at UC Irvine. Dr. Omoumi is also an architect, holding an M.A from the National University of Iran and a doctorate from the University of Florence, and taught architecture at the National University of Iran for 10 years.

Performance career

His performance career spans more than four decades and three continents, including appearances at many of the major concert halls and festivals of Europe, the United States, and Canada. He has recorded numerous albums, and appeared on many others including the sound track to The Sweet Hereafter winner of the Grand Prix at Cannes in 1997. His research on the making of the ney and Persian percussion has opened up new possibilities and introduced significant innovations to the ney, tombak and daf.