Dr. Hossein Omoumi (Iran), voice and nai

Hossein Omoumi was born to an artistic family in Isfahan, the capital of Persia from the 16^th to 18^th centuries and home to many artists and musicians. He began his musical training by studying singing with his father. At age 14, fascinated by the sound of the ney (Persian reed flute), Dr. Omoumi began to study the recordings of Master Hassan Kassa’i. In 1962, he entered the National University of Iran to study architecture, where he also entered many musical competitions. His ney-playing caught the attention of the judges, and with their recommendation he entered the National Conservatory of Music, where he studied music theory and vocal repertoire with Master Mahmood Karimi. In 1969, he finally met Hassan Kassa’i himself, and under his supervision Dr. Omoumi began to study ney in depth.

In 1972, Hossein Omoumi received his doctorate in Architecture from the University of Florence, Italy. He then divided his time between teaching architecture and music, collaborating with the Iranian National Radio and Television and teaching ney at the Center for Preservation and Dissemination of Music, the National Conservatory, and Tehran University. In 1984, he moved to Paris, where he taught ney and vocal music at the Center for Oriental Music Studies.

Dr. Omoumi has been invited to teach at many distinguished universities, including UCLA, the Sorbonne, and the University of Wales. He has performed at important venues and festivals around the world, including the San Francisco world Music Festival 2000 and 2001, the Getty Center and Schoenberg Hall in Los Angeles, the World Music Institute in New York, and the Théatre de la Ville in Paris. Dr. Omoumi was featured as ney soloist on the soundtrack of “The Sweet Hereafter,” which won several awards at the 1997 Cannes International Film Festival. His music is available on Kereshmeh Records, Nimbus Records, and AlSur. A live recording of “Sarmast: Trance of Devotion” has recently been released on BA Music Records.

Dr. Omoumi has brought both his artistic sensibility and his training in design to bear in his innovations to instrument design. He has added a key (hand-carved out of horn) to his ney-s to extend the range and flexibility of the instrument. He has also devised a system for tuning the tombak and daf. For more information visit Dr. Omoumi’s website: www.omoumi.com.