Kiya Tabassian

Composer, ensemble director, and Persian setar player Kiya Tabassian is best known as the director of the ensemble Constantinople. He has led the group in innovative fusion programs that bridge Eastern and Western traditions. Tabassian was born in Tehran, Iran, in 1976. He and his family moved to Quebec when he was 14, and by that time, he had already had some training in Persian classical music. He sought out Iranian teachers in Montreal, studying the Persian setar lute. At the same time, he attended the Montreal Conservatory, studying composition and music history with Gilles Tremblay and Michel Gonneville. Tabassian and his brother, percussionist Ziya Tabassian, founded the ensemble Constantinople in 1998. The group had the aim of drawing on early music from the West, the traditions of the eastern Mediterranean, and the interactions between the two that have developed over time. Tabassian has served as the Constantinople's artistic director ever since, devising some 40 thematic programs that the group has performed in some 140 cities. In addition to notated existing music, he has filled gaps with his own compositions. Tabassian has also contributed his talents as a composer to the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, the Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, the Atlas Ensemble of the Netherlands (at whose academy he has also served as a tutor), and the European Broadcasting Union. He has composed music for several films, including Jabaroot and Voices of the Unheard. Tabassian is a member of the MediMuses Project, which carries out research on the music of the Mediterranean region. With Constantinople, he has been heard on more than 15 recordings on the ATMA Classique, Analekta, and Glossa labels, beginning with Terre Turquoises in 2004 (one of several Constantinople recordings to include music of the Sephardic Jewish community). In 2020, Tabassian and Constantinople released the album La Porta d'Oriente on Glossa.
© James Manheim /TiVo