Damsaz Ensemble: Maestro Hamid Motebassem, Samira Golbaz, Ziya Tabassian

The return of Maestro Motebassem after 10 years with a new ensemble: Damsaz

Hamid Motebassem was born in 1958 in Mashad, Iran. He was raised in a musical family, where his brother was a violinist and his first teacher was his father, Ali Motebassem who played the Tar. His subsequent teachers included the masters Habiballah Salehi, Zeydallah Toloie, Houshang Zarif, Hossein Alizadeh and Mohammad Reza Lotfi. Motebassem studied in the Tehran School of Art and the Conservatory of Persian Music. He was a member of the Chavosh Cultural Center where he taught music. One of the original members of Aref Ensemble, he founded Dastan Ensemble as well as Ensemble Chakavak, Mezrab & Pardis upon immigration to Germany in 1986.

Renowned for his virtuosity and innovative approach to percussion, Ziya Tabassian, embarked on his musical odyssey at the age of ten, immersing himself in the resonant beats of the tomb, in Iran.His journey continued in Quebec, where he melded classical Western percussion with his Eastern roots, studying with Julien Grégoire between 1994 and 2001 and earning a Bachelor’s degree in interpretation from the Université de Montréal.A pivotal moment in Tabassian’s artistic evolution occurred during a transformative residency at The Banff Center in 2003. Here, he seamlessly blended Iranian percussion with contemporary influences, a fusion that continues to define his distinctive sound.