The Leading Bird - ZH Magazine

This video recorded and produced in Iceland. Co-created by Aida Shahghasemi and Marketa Irglova. Also, Aida performed as one of the two vocals, written the lyrics and composed parts of the melody.

One unsuspecting summer day back in Tehran, she was pushed to sing on stage by Samadi, and she fell in love with it ever since. Her passion for Persian classical music stems from the cultural identity she craved after immigrating, and the women she met during her years of study. Her senior project at University of Minnesota’s Anthropology department centered around restrictions on the voices of female classical vocalists in Iran, through which she met, interviewed, and studied, with Parissa for a period of 3 months. While getting her graduate degree in Arts Politics in NYC, Aida worked with a few non-profit organizations as a teaching artist promoting the arts as a tool for social justice. She created and taught a class called Iran’s Arts Activism centered around the effects of society on art and vise versa, at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. She has worked with different artists internationally and is grateful for their generosity with creative space. She currently has a home with her husband and their dog, Milo, in the Nokomis neighborhood of Minneapolis

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1 Comment

Paul Cimmerer

April 28, 2016 1:44 am

Absolutely beautiful music, performance, lyrics and video!

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