Profile: Ariana Barkeshli
AUG 2 8:00 pm
Persian Trilogy
Commemorating the Millennium of the Shahnamah,
a Masterpiece of Classical Persian Poetry and Cosmopolitanism
Ariana Barkeshli is a concert pianist, music educator and researcher. She has performed in American universities and at numerous international conferences and cultural events. Barkeshli is the first Persian pianist invited to perform at Meridian International Center in Washington, DC (Countries in Concert Series, 2001) as well as at the National Gallery of Arts, Washington DC, 2004 music series. She has been dubbed “A Keyboard Scheherazade” by a Hudson Valley music critic. Besides her passion for Bach and other classical composers, she has been performing pieces from contemporary Persian composers and introducing them to audiences in the US.
Ariana Barkeshli began her artistic life at an early age. A native of Tehran, she received her first music lessons from her father, the scholar, physicist and musicologist Dr. Mehdi Barkeshli. She attended the Tehran Music Conservatory, and at age fifteen, went to France to continue her music studies. Over the next ten years, Barkeshli studied with Yvonne Loriod (wife of renowned composer Olivier Messiaen) at the Paris Conservatory Foreign Division and with Germaine Mounier at both the Amiens Conservatory and L’Ecole Normale de Musique where she received numerous awards and received the master of music degree. Barkeshli gave her first public performance at the age of fifteen at the Salle Cortot in Paris. She was invited to perform as a soloist with the English Chamber Orchestra at the City Theater in Tehran under the direction of conductor Loris Tjeknavorian. Barkeshli went on to become a member of the music faculty at the Art University (formerly the Farabi University) where she taught for several years.
Since 1985, Barkeshli has lived in New York and has continued her research and education in music. At the State University of New York, she obtained a master’s degree in piano pedagogy under the direction of renowned pianist Vladimir Feltsman. Among her achievements is a series of Bach performances in the US and Iran on the occasion of commemorating the 250th anniversary of J.S. Bach.
Barkeshli has also performed in conjunction with the 10th anniversary of Mehdi Barkeshli’s passing, organized by Mt. Hood Community College in Portland, and at City College, New York. In celebration of the 100th birthday of the Persian writer Sadeq Hedayat, she performed in the program “From Bach to Contemporary Persian Composers” at Saint Antony College, Oxford University. A concert by Ariana Barkeshli also supplemented the exhibition of 50 contemporary Iranian artists at Meridian International Center in Washington, DC.
Barkeshli has collaborated and performed with Persian writers, poets, artists and scholars including Simin Behbahani, Yadollah Royai, Ahmad Karimi Hakak and Homa Katouzian. She has created lecture series, performed piano works in the New York metropolitan and suburban regions, and published writing in international music journals.