Kayhan Kalhor is an internationally acclaimed virtuoso and the world’s leading player of the kamancheh, the Persian spike fiddle. Through his many collaborations, he has been instrumental in popularizing Persian music in the West and remains a creative force in today’s global music scene. His performances of traditional Persian music and innovative cross-cultural projects have captivated audiences worldwide.
A child prodigy on the kamancheh, Kalhor was invited at age thirteen to join the Iranian National Radio and Television Orchestra, where he performed for five years. At seventeen, he began working with the Shayda Ensemble of the Chavosh Cultural Center, Iran’s most prestigious arts organization at the time. While performing with Shayda, he continued studying the Iranian classical repertoire (radif) with various masters. In 1978, he moved to Rome to study Western classical music and later earned a degree in music from Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. Kalhor has extensively researched the regional music of Iran, particularly that of Khorasan and Kurdistan.
A co-founder of the renowned Dastan Ensemble, Kalhor has also played a pivotal role in several groundbreaking projects. He was a founding member of Masters of Persian Music alongside Mohammad Reza Shajarian, Hossein Alizadeh, and Homayoun Shajarian; co-created the Persian-Indian ensemble Ghazal with sitar virtuoso Shujaat Husain Khan; and was an original member of Yo-Yo Ma’s Silkroad Ensemble. He is also known for his pioneering work with Erdal Erzincan, Brooklyn Rider, and the Rembrandt Trio.
Kalhor has composed works for Iran’s most celebrated vocalists, including Mohammad Reza Shajarian and Shahram Nazeri, and has collaborated with leading instrumentalists. As a soloist, he has performed with major orchestras such as the New York Philharmonic and the Orchestre National de Lyon. His most recent composition, Venus in the Mirror, a double concerto for cello and kamancheh, was completed in May 2024.
His work extends into film and television, including collaborations with Osvaldo Golijov on Francis Ford Coppola’s Youth Without Youth and composing for numerous Iranian films. In 2021, he wrote the music for the acclaimed Iranian drama series Once Upon a Time in Iran. His commissions include works for the Kronos Quartet, the Silkroad Ensemble, and Yo-Yo Ma, with several of his compositions featured on Silkroad Ensemble recordings.
Kalhor has released over two dozen albums, including The Sky Is the Colour Everywhere, a collaboration with West African kora player Toumani Diabaté, which won a Songlines Award for Best Fusion Album. Other notable albums include It’s Still Autumn with the Rembrandt Frerichs Trio, Silent City with Brooklyn Rider, I Will Not Stand Alone with santoor player Ali Bahrami Fard, and two albums with Erdal Erzincan on ECM. He has also released multiple recordings with Ghazal Ensemble (ECM, Shanachie) and Masters of Persian Music (World Village). A three-time GRAMMY nominee, he won a GRAMMY in 2017 as part of Yo-Yo Ma’s Silkroad Ensemble.
Kayhan Kalhor has received numerous prestigious awards recognizing his contributions to music and culture. In 2005, he was honored with the Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik (“German Record Critics’ Award”). He received the Isaac Stern Human Spirit Award in 2018, followed by the Bita Prize for Persian Arts and the Womex Artist Award in 2019. In 2020, he was awarded the globalFEST Artist Award, and in 2022, his Spark and Fire podcast was recognized as a Webby honoree. He was also featured in the 2017 documentary The Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and The Silk Road Ensemble.
2024-2025
