THE RESONANCE ATLAS
Niloufar Nourbakhsh
Biography
Niloufar Nourbakhsh is an Iranian-American composer, pianist and educator, born in Tehran. After early musical training in Iran, she studied at Goucher College and completed a PhD in composition at Stony Brook University under Sheila Silver. Her music ranges from chamber and orchestral writing to opera and electroacoustic work, often exploring storytelling, identity and the relationship between individual experience and collective memory.
Nourbakhsh co-founded the Iranian Female Composers Association and has taught at Longy School of Music of Bard College and Berklee College of Music. Her work has been performed by ensembles including the Kronos Quartet, International Contemporary Ensemble and Norwegian Radio Orchestra; the latter performed her orchestral piece Knell at the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize ceremony. Her recent projects include the opera The Silver Cypress and Dawn of a Cold Season, a recording project engaging with Iranian feminist poetry.
Why this music interests us
Nourbakhsh's chamber music combines distinctive instrumental writing with a powerful interest in human experience, identity and displacement. Syria, a Fractal of WE (2016), for violin, bassoon and piano, offers Resonance an unusually direct way into that musical world. Firing Squad (2018), for reed quintet and fixed media, opens another path through sound and technology. The Pierrot-ensemble work Aid for Sex (2019) is also compelling, although its fixed-media element and difficult subject require thoughtful programming.
Selected works & listening
Syria, a Fractal of WE (2016; violin, bassoon, piano); Firing Squad (2018; reed quintet and fixed media; wind arrangement also exists); Aid for Sex (2019; Pierrot ensemble and fixed media); C Ce See (2022; flute, violin, viola, cello, double bass, piano, percussion); White Helmets as White as Death (2017; flute, violin, viola)
Further information