Emam Musician/Composer/Producer/Teacher

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Originally from Iran, Emam migrated to the United States in 1974.

MUSICIAN

Emam has been trained in North Indian Classical drumming by the grand masters of tabla: Ustad Alla Rakha and Ustad Zakir Hussain. He also studied the Delhi Gharana of Tabla with the late Ustad Inam Ali Khan. Since 1978, Emam has been traveling to India, almost yearly, spending much time there in pursuit of a greater understanding of the culture and the music. In 1991, he was awarded a scholarship for study of music in India by the American Institute of Indian Studies with funding from the Smithsonian Institute. Subsequently, he spent a year and a half in India, researching as well as producing music. The results were a book called "Delhi Gharana of Tabla (a Compositional Documentation)", as well as music albums which were released by Magnasound. In performances, Emam brings together musicians from around the world to collaborate and create fresh new sounds based on traditional music from various cultures. This is also reflected in his recordings and compositions. Since the early 80's, Emam has performed with great artists from around the world, such as (alphabetic order): Ancient Future (world fusion ensemble) Sikiru Adepoju (African drummer) Piotr Baron (sax - Poland) Latif Bolat (singer/instrumentalist Turkey) George Brooks (sax - USA) Michael Carabello (original Santana percussionist), Artur Dutkiewicz (piano - Poland), Kai Eckhardt (bass - Germany/USA), Nina Hagen (pop star - Germany) Shabda Kahn (vocals - USA), Habib Khan (sitar - India/USA) Rupak Kulkarni (bansuri - India) Zoltan Lantos (violin - Hungary) Georges Lammam (violin - the Middle East/USA), Irina Mikhailova (singer - Russian), Deepak Ram (South African bansuri player) Seattle Symphony with the original Frank Zappa Band Mukesh Sharma (sarod player - India) Manose Singh (bansuri - Nepal/USA) Suzanne Sterling (singer - USA) Tam Tam Project (world fusion ensemble - Poland) Kit Walker (keyboards - USA) Tytus Wojnowicz (oboe - Poland) Please see his Performance Highlights for examples of his previous concerts.

COMPOSER

Emam's compositions have been recorded and released on the following "Emam & Friends" albums: Jai Ganesha Global Fusion Sacred Insanity Voices of the Goddess Is This Real? Indian Dream

PRODUCER/SOUND ENGINEER

In 1989, Emam established Eternal Music, a music label dedicated to traditional and sacred world music and world fusion music. All the albums released by Eternal Music have been produced by Emam. In addition, he has co-produced albums for Latif Bolat (Infinite Beginning) and Mindia Klein (Balanise Dream). Since 1983, Emam has been providing engineering assistance to Ustad Zakir Hussain on many occasions, including recording his live performances. As a result Emam has recorded and managed sound for many of India's top artists performing with Ustad Zakir Hussain, including: Ustad Alla Rakha, Pandit Shivkumar Sharma, Ustad Amjad Ali Khan, Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia, Ustad Bissmillah Khan, Ustad Sultan Khan, L Shankar, and many more. Emam has also engineered the last three "Emam & Friends" albums: Voices of the Goddess, Sacred Insanity and Jai Ganesha

TEACHER

Emam offers workshops and classes in Rhythm and tabla for all levels. He has been giving private and group lessons in USA & Europe for many years. For details please click here.