ABOUT

I was born at the turn of this millennium in Boulder, Colorado. My Iranian mother came to this country as a teenager to escape a revolution. My father is so thoroughly American his ancestors traveled here on the Mayflower. When I was 5 years old I began taking lessons from a great piano teacher and family friend down the street. I picked up the trumpet in school band four years later. I started singing and playing the guitar after that; then came bass and drums, and various musical technologies.

For as long as I can remember I’ve made up stories, poetry, and music. I have always loved to draw, paint, and make things with my hands. The piano may be the center of my musical solar system, but I love all the instruments I play and the tools I use just the same.

For a time, I attended university for a jazz trumpet degree and some computer science to appease my family. While I was there I was able to expand my considerable interest in languages. Now I’m rather familiar with seven of them. Eventually I dropped out of school to play music. I’ve lived mostly in Colorado and sometimes Europe. Lots of musical traditions matter to me.

Lately I can be found playing several of my instruments around Denver, thinking about stories, or un-blanking paper. I like to bring life to other peoples' ideas and my own. I hope to travel around the world doing this someday soon. Music has given me some peace in times of strife I didn’t think I could take, and a way out of a trapped mind. It doesn’t do that for everybody, but it does for some. Then we can help music carry the next wave of future people who need it through their lives.