I have been singing since I was young, very young - maybe I was born a singer. I chose a different course of study but singing was always in my heart and on my mind. I took my first music lessons in Iran, learning from different people, but later in the Netherlands I started studying classical music, learning to play the guitar and the piano and taking lots of courses in vocalisation and solfege and singing, for eight years long. Then I began singing in a couple of choirs. In the year 2000 I started my career as a solo singer, accompanied by different piano players until ...
...I met composer and pianist Hamid Tabatabaei and Shandiz was born. The other members of the ensmeble are cello player Imre Keblušek and violinist Angela Skala. We have recorded four CD's so far and we have given many concerts in a lot of theaters, churches, musea and so forth, mainly in the Netherlands but also in Germany, Belgium and Denmark. The music of Shandiz has its roots in the Iranian culture but is composed and arranged for western instruments and voice, in the European classical tradition. And last but certainly not least: we play Italian aria's that I sing in Persian. Nobody does that, as far as we know. I translated the aria's myself, a very precise work because it has to be a good translation ánd the result must be singable. See the result here. Shandiz has its own website.
A couple of years ago I started working with pianist Bam Commijs. Our duo is called Pardis. We play our own compositions: modern-classic songs with roots in the Persian music culture. Bam writes the music, I do the text. Also on our repertoire: lullabies from all over the world. Up till now we recorded two cd's:
With guitar player Vincent Geurts I used to sing Persian songs. We called our duo Doroed. Since Vincent is busy with other things we don't give concerts anymore.
With piano player Frank de Koning I used to sing Italian aria's. This duo was called Il Sogno, Italian for 'the dream'. Frank also is too busy to give concerts.
Finally, I have recorded a CD with lullabies from all over the world with guitar player Javier Garvia Vicente.
Track #12 from the CD 'Echo' that I recorded with Shandiz.
'Lai lai lai' from the CD 'LULLABIES from around the world' - with guitar player Javier Garcia Vicente.
Track #14 from the CD 'Iranian Folk Songs - Iranian Old Songs' - with Shandiz.
Track #10 from the CD 'A Woman Alone' - with Shandiz.
Track #24 from the CD 'Iranian Folk Songs - Iranian Old Songs' - with Shandiz.