NAVID BARGRIZAN. COMPOSER. MUSICOLOGIST. CONDUCTOR.


Nearly all of Navid Bargrizan’s compositions explore intonational and tuning concepts. Since 2014, his experiments with microtonality have resulted in 15 premieres and more than 40 performances of his works in the Europe and North America for instance at New York City Electroacoustic Festival, Toronto Electroacoustic Symposium, Eastern Music Festival, Florida Contemporary Festival, North American Saxophone Alliance, and Conferences of the Society of Composers, Inc., as well as in Lübeck, Salzburg, Hamburg, and Copenhagen. Virtuoso musicians and ensembles such as Boston String Quartet, Bold City Contemporary Ensemble, Katharina Uhde, Susan Fancher, Steve Stusek, and Jonas Frølund have performed and recorded his works. For his woodwind quintet Tuning Exercise No. 1, Navid was a finalist in the 2017 American Prize for Composition. Same prize also selected him as a finalist for Se-Chahar-Gah, his piece for solo microtonal adjustable guitar in its 2020 edition. As a 2018 Composer-in-Residence of Harn Museum of Art, Gainesville, Florida, he composed a saxophone piece based on artworks from the Harn’s collection. Saxophonist and Multimedia Artist Laurent Estoppey premiered and recorded this work, entitled Pictures at the Micro-Exhibition. Navid’s 10 Aphorisms for saxophone duo (recorded by Stacks Duo) and Se-Chahar-Gah for microtonal guitar (recorded by Tolgahan Cogulu) have appeared on Figments vol. II: Contemporary Solo and Chamber Ensemble Works (Navona, 2019). Lava Ilogica, his fixed-media composition based on Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, is released on Mind & Machine vol. III: Organic and Electronic Works (Ravello, 2020). in 2021, Mahoor Institute published a collection of his works titled "6 Chamber Pieces by Navid Bargrizan." Navid’s research on the music of Harry Partch, Manfred Stahnke, Roger Waters, and Mozart has led to several published articles, book chapter, reviews, and proceeding papers (see https://www.navidbargrizan.com/). He has presented aspects of his research projects—supported by awards such as three DAAD Scholarships and Doctoral Fellowship of the Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere of the University of Florida—at approximately 35 international conferences in the North America and Europe, including American Musicological Society, Society for Music Theory, Society for American Music, German Studies Association, and International Association of the Study of Popular Music. Navid worked as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Music Composition, as well as Adjunct Lecturer of General Humanities and German Language, at the University of Florida. At this institution and Universität Hamburg, Germany, he earned M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Music History and Literature; Music Composition, Theory and Technology; Systematic Musicology; and Art History. He also worked as an Adjunct Professor of Music (Theory/History) at Texas A&M University-Commerce and Instructor of German Language at Dallas Goethe Center. He also served as a visiting assistant professor and coordinator of the composition area at Valparaiso University, where He directed the Valparaiso University New Music Ensemble (VUNUMU) and cooperated as composer and performer with the university’s laptop orchestra (ValpLork). Navid is currently an Assistant Professor of Music at East Carolina University.

Compositions

10 Aphorisms, for saxophone duo
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Recorded by Stacks Duo (Steve Stusek & Laurent Estoppey), Greensboro, North Carolina, USA (2015)
Se-Chahar-Gah (Trip-Four-Tych), for solo microtonal guitar
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Recorded by Tolgahan Cogulu, Bristol, England (2015)
Pictures at the Micro-Exhibition, for solo saxophone
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Recorded by Laurent Estoppey, Gainesville, Florida, USA (2018)
Kupferteich, for solo viola
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Recorded by Manfred Stahnke, Hamburg, Germany (2019)