Kiya Tabassian

composer, setar, voice

AN UNDISPUTED MASTER OF THE SETAR
Setar virtuoso and acclaimed composer, Kiya Tabassian has carved out a privileged place on the international music scene with his ensemble Constantinople and also as a soloist. Past master in cross-cultural musical encounters, he travels across the five continents for presenting his creations and his music on stages from all over the world.
At 14 years old, Kiya Tabassian emigrates with his family to Quebec, bringing with him a few years of training in Persian scholarly music and his budding career on the Iranian musical scene. Determined to become a musician, composer and, more broadly, a carrier of memory, he pursues his training in Persian music as an autodidact and through his recurrent meetings with Reza Gassemi and Kayhan Kalhor. In parallel, he studies musical composition at the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal with Gilles Tremblay.

In 2001, he cofounds Constantinople with the idea of developing an ensemble of musical creations at the crossroads of multiple encounters; drawing from the heritage of the Middle-Ages and the Renaissance, from Europe to the Mediterranean and to the Middle-East. Since then, he has assumed artistic direction and has developed more than fifty programs with his ensemble.