Columbia Sounds Concert : "Improvisations"

Ramin Amir Arjomand’s increasingly legendary improvisations have drawn attention both in the United States and abroad. On Monday, June 15, Arjomand will present a long-form solo recital at Columbia Global Centers | Paris. The concert will be in one part, without intermission, lasting approximately 60-70 minutes. Arjomand’s playing draws as much on a nineteenth-century European approach to piano resonance as it does on the unfettered sensibility of American avant-garde jazz, testing the limits of virtuosity and sound intensity in a musical journey that is difficult to characterize but uniquely memorable. Beneath the sound surface lies a musical ethos that can only be described as distinctly Iranian. In the words of the writer Rick Whitaker, Arjomand’s improvisations “narrate some sort of a quest. It’s a story of struggle…, a searching for authentic (musical) existence, trying things out on the fly, with no time for hesitation or regret—what he gets himself into he must get us all out from under before sunrise.”

Arjomand is an Iranian-American composer, pianist, improviser, conductor, and educator based in Brooklyn, New York. His music has been presented by the International Computer Music Conference, Speculum Musicae, So Percussion Ensemble, the New York Virtuoso Singers, the Cassatt Quartet, TAK Ensemble, the Columbia Collegium Musicum, and numerous independent ensembles and soloists in venues throughout the United States, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. As a pianist, Arjomand has performed internationally as a soloist and in ensembles presenting his own works. His approach cultivates spontaneity and thrives on questioning the need for pre-conceived formal structures in composition and performance. In recent appearances, his activity has focused on total improvisation. His electroacoustic music, based in a Logic digital editing environment, works primarily with recorded improvised sound material. Arjomand has a DMA in Composition from Columbia University.